


Striketober: Trainwreck Edition

by foreverhalffull



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M, Plot What Plot/Not Porn It's Just a MESS, Striketober | Cormoran Strike Fictober 2020
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:48:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 29
Words: 22,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26753095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foreverhalffull/pseuds/foreverhalffull
Summary: You know what it is :)I was too lazy to commit to 100-word drabbles (though each chapter will still be an unconnected storyline), so this is likely to be a Hot Mess Express™️. If you're looking for well-edited literary greatness I'd direct you elsewhere, but this should be good fun hopefully!
Relationships: Matthew Cunliffe/Robin Ellacott, Pat Chauncey & Cormoran Strike, Robin Ellacott & Cormoran Strike, Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike
Comments: 329
Kudos: 139
Collections: Striketober | Cormoran Strike Fictober 2020





	1. Is that even possible?

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to least cohesive fictober collection you'll find! I'm guessing they'll probably all be around the 350-word range, because I'm aiming to write them each in 20 minutes and limit by time rather than word count, but there are a couple whose plans have grown a bit too much in my head, so we'll see. Enjoy!
> 
> Starting off with Pat and Strike's friendship today, because it's my new second-fave (behind the gloriousness that is Barclacott ofc)!

“Alright, Pat?” 

Cormoran hung his signature wool coat on the peg beside the door to the landing as he spoke. His dense curls held an impressive amount of water, and he greatly desired the opportunity to shake them out but supposed that doing so in close proximity to the agency’s office manager would be in poor taste. Their relationship wasn’t exactly what one would call warm, but it had grown considerably since he’d begun heeding Robin’s advice, trying to shoulder some of the emotional labor of holding the agency together, and since Pat had admitted that her dislike for the surlier of her two bosses stemmed from his resemblance to her ex-husband.

“All good ‘round here. Mrs. – er, Ms. – Simmons paid her final invoice, so I’ll take that down to the bank in an hour or so if you’ve got any post to send while I’m out.”

He nodded. “No post, but would you mind closing out the Twoheaded case?”

“Twoheaded?” 

He’d forgotten he hadn’t shared the nickname Robin had created the night before, a mockery of their mark’s remarkably pale blond hair and proclivity to think with the head they hadn’t seen. It had been scarcely more than twenty-four hours since they’d taken the case, which wasn’t exactly helpful for the bottom line of a business with daily rates, but the firm’s partners had too much integrity to draw it out as long as one could believably have done.

“The woman from yesterday, with the braids. Gretchen, maybe?”

“You’ve finished her case already? Is that even possible?”

Despite the warmth which had of late suffused their stern acquaintanceship, Pat and Strike were hardly close enough to compliment one another. Even so, she couldn’t help the slight influx of admiration she felt.

“Don’t look so shocked, Pat. You’ll wound me. You know we’re the best in London!”

The teasing was new, but Pat had little time to ponder the growth of their friendship before her attention was drawn by Robin, who rolled her eyes as she appeared behind her partner and poked his flank. 

“Don’t sound so full of yourself, Strike. That case practically closed itself; the maid was itching to gossip.”

Pat laughed under her breath and rolled her eyes, and order was restored to the office on Denmark Street once more.


	2. Want some company?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a bit AU; you'll see... Sorry in advance!   
> *runs and hides from the hate I'm sure to get in the comments*

Cormoran poured more whisky into his tumbler, laughing without comedy at the unnecessity of using the nice cup to drink alone. He couldn’t be bothered to move up to his flat from the office, or at least that was what he told himself. Even though it had hurt to see her that morning—the first time in months—and he wasn’t sure another interaction with her would mend the hole in his chest, there was a not insignificant part of him that had hoped Robin would drop by Denmark Street between wrapping her surveillance for the night and returning home. 

To him. To _them._

In seven years of partnership, there had been only a handful of times he’d not looked forward to seeing her. And technically this morning couldn’t have counted; he’d been practically giddy for her return to work and had found himself rolling out of bed with more ease and less dread than usual. Which made the later crack resounding from his snapped chordae tendineae hurt all the more.

The anniversary of their working together had passed unacknowledged the week before, and he had a gift for her under their shared desk. He felt suddenly like chucking it, as it was too nearly a betrayal of the fact that their partnership was by far the most important thing in his life, when it objectively could not have ranked highly among the top five in hers.

Robin sighed as she climbed the stairs on Denmark Street, more worn than she’d ever been by a day of surveillance despite the mundanity of the case. She unwound her chiffon scarf with one hand and unlocked the office door with the other, eager to file her notes and pictures and get home as soon as possible. 

Matthew wouldn’t be pleased; it was past eight in the evening now and she’d sworn she would try to keep more reasonable hours once she returned to work, but then the mark had suddenly made a move at a quarter to five and that plan had gone out the window more quickly than even Robin had expected. 

It wasn’t Matthew Cunliffe she worried about disappointing, but Eleanor. 

It was a challenge to make the balance work, and an even more substantial difficulty to convince Matthew that she could do it, would be safe doing it. It was harder yet to convince herself, and hardest still to convince her daughter, not that Elle could comprehend the words her mother whispered into her downy strawberry blonde hair, still rocking her hours after she’d fallen asleep.

The only person she hadn’t felt pressured to convince was Strike, whose burly form she was surprised to find on the farting sofa when she opened the office door at last. 

“Oh, Cormoran. I didn’t expect you’d be here.”

“I’m always here, R’bin. The agency’s it for me.”

She had a feeling he wasn’t addressing his workaholic tendencies, given his drawn-in lower lip and his elbows resting on his knees, a tumbler filled with what she surmised was whisky between them. 

“Right. D’you want some company?”

“You can’t.” 

The depth in his voice was beyond disappointment; it was acceptance and grief and betrayal in one. Perhaps her feeling of not needing to convince him had been mere projection misplaced. 

She briefly considered the possibility of joining him in drinking in addition to sitting and misery, which had been the context of her initial suggestion. But she was already concerned about the store of milk she’d steadily frozen over the past weeks, and about the way her change in routine would likely affect her supply. 

She felt torn in a way she had never wanted to. But her baby must come first now – there was bound to be a time when Robin was forced to put something ahead of her, or make a risk she shouldn’t have, but that sacrifice would not be made to drink with her boss-turned-best friend instead of going home to her daughter and feeding her and loving her. No, Eleanor would continue to come first until Robin was called to protect someone else who needed her, and who had no one else.

She couldn’t help but think that tradeoff was occurring right now, though more invisibly. Her work partner, as she called him in her head in hopes that her heart would catch on, had no one else. He needed to know he had her, at least, in addition to the agency. Or maybe he only saw her as part of the business? She would have thought belonged in his personal life by now; though she’d never told him, he was by far her best mate.

“I’m happy just to sit here,” she said. And she laid her coat on one arm of the sofa and sat only inches from his hunched and emotionally greying form and put her arm around his shoulders as he’d done for her countless times over the years.

“I’m happy just to sit here,” she repeated in a whisper. He raised his glass defeatedly and sipped from it.


	3. "It sounded better in my head."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to niceness today and (mostly) forevermore! Thanks for putting up with me yesterday :)

“I know I've been known to say the odd insensitive comment, with Lucy's kids and all. And to Nick about the Spurs, and... But this was work! It's different! They're paying us to tell them the truth; if they don't want to hear it, it's hardly my problem.”

“Just because the message needs to get across doesn't mean it needs be said like that.”

Robin is trying to be patient, but Cormoran is oddly defensive today, pacing and refusing to make eye contact. Past experience sets her on edge.

“Okay, well, what would you have said then, Miss Sunshine? Hmm?”

“Cormoran!” 

Her voice is as sharp as it is admonishing, and it surprises them both. Somehow, as he turns to her with furrowed brows and an unironically protruding lip, he manages to look like a wounded puppy and a piercing man at once.

“What?”

“It's not me you're mad at.”

He closes his eyes for a moment and hangs his head fractionally. When he looks up again, it's to see her arms open and head cocked to one side, looking kinder and cuddlier than he deserves.

"So don't take it out on me, yeah? C'mere."

As he crosses slowly from the seating area in the corner of the inner office to her spot at the nicer of the two rolling chairs at the partners' desk, he marvels at her ability to fuse stern and fond into one perfectly-Robin tone. She never would have told their client that the reason her son hadn't been answering her calls was because he strongly disliked her and had seen his recent move to London as an escape. 

“Maybe in the future, we can put means before motive in client debriefs as well? More “Your son is alive and well,’ less ‘The reason you haven't heard from him is because he never wants to see you again’?”

“It sounded better in my head,” he tells the crook between her neck and shoulder.

“I know.”

She's still running her hand through his curls when he speaks again. “She wasn't good enough to him. He deserved better.”

He isn't talking about their client.

“I know.”


	4. "Where does it hurt?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is set loosely just before _Troubled Blood_ begins, though it doesn't really matter... I have given them a case they technically wouldn't have had at the time but I wanted it to be set then, sooo here we are! No tears today hopefully!

“Hey, Boss, I—” Barclay sounded rushed and anxious the moment Robin picked up the phone.

“Oh dear. Something happen with Knighty the First?” The mark’s nickname-of-a-nickname was short for Knighty the Fuckface, but Robin didn’t always feel proper saying his full nickname in the office.

“That’s what I’m calling about — I’m not going tae be able tae go. I’m sure I can swing an invite tae the club some other time, and hopefully he doesnae get up tae anythin’ in the meantime because I’d feel forever guilty, but Nat’s out of town with her mum and the babysitter’s fallen through. Our backup cannae do it on short notice.”

“Bugger.”

Strike looked up at her from the other side of their desk, but she waved him off. After his success infiltrating CORE and Jimmy Knight’s friend group, they’d assigned him once more to play his pitiful ex-squaddie-deceived-into-colonialism-seeing-the-light-of-left-wing-radicalism-for-the-first-time. They suspected the nightclub their mark ran was home to an underground brothel where the young woman whose murder they were investigating had seemingly worked.

“No, no, you need to go tonight. I’d take over for you, but Strike wouldn’t have that—” she stuck out her tongue at him as she spoke— “and it wouldn’t work anyway. The invitation was yours, and it’ll look suspicious if you have to try too hard to get asked back.” She rolled her lips and eyed her work partner, who was watching her conversation with evident interest and concern. 

“Bring her here.” It was more of a demand than an offer, really.

“Are ye sure?”

“Yeah, we’ll manage. Cormoran and I were planning to have an office evening anyway; you can pick her up whenever you’re done. I’d like us to get as far on this case as we can before they realize we’re investigating, and it gets more dangerous.”

“Alright. Thanks a million, Robs.”

“No worries. Part of being a team, Sam.”

Cormoran held her gaze as she rung off, awaiting an explanation of the changes to their office evening.

“Barclay’s dropping his kid off. Babysitter fell through, and we need him to go to this party.”

“Yeah, good choice.” His approval didn’t change his excitement for the only-marginally-invited guest. He rocked back in his chair and ran his hand through his curls. “How big is it?”

“The baby? Well, she was born just before he started with us, so I’d reckon just about a year? Give or take a month or so?”

“That doesn’t actually tell me anything I didn’t already know.”

Robin laughed and gestured with her hands a shape which she guessed was about the size of a one-year-old child, though she wasn’t confident.

“Should probably walk pretty poorly? Probably won’t say much that makes sense?”

“So still useless, you mean.” Robin laughed and shrugged at Cormoran’s assessment. “But honestly, if it can’t talk or move, that might be an improvement on most of the kids I know.”

“She. Not it.”

He’d laughed with his entire chest, which turned rapidly to an expression of comical fear when the door of the outer office opened and Barclay called out to them.

“Hiya, Sam, we’re just in here!” she called.

“Thanks so much Robs. I’ve got a bag of shite here; she’s already eaten dinner but there’s snacks if she’s fussy, and a binky and diapers and the lot. I’m no much bothered with her schedule but if she does fall asleep, ye can lay her on a blanket on the floor; I shoved one in there, and I should be back ‘round eight or nine unless anythin’ really gets goin’.”

“Sounds great Sam, I’m sure we’ll manage,” Robin assured him.

“Yeah,” Cormoran added, quire insightfully and confidently. Sam laughed as he passed the baby to Robin and tapped the top of the doorframe reflexively on his way out.

“What’s its name?” 

“Her. She’s not an it.”

“Sorry. What’s her name?”

“I forgot to ask.”

“Me too. Fuck.”

“We shouldn’t curse in front of a baby.”

“Shit, sorry.”

Robin snorted. “We’re detectives; we should be able to figure this out.”

“Or we can just call her Barclay, right? She probably doesn’t know what her name is, anyway.”

Robin had made the offer to keep the child with the expectation that she would have done most of the childminding. She didn’t mind it particularly, and she knew Strike hated it. And she wouldn’t have signed his night away any more than necessary by expecting him to do the babysitting. But his work was nearly wrapped and less time-sensitive, while hers was in preparation for a client meeting to close a case the next morning, so she ended up primarily working alone in the inner office while Strike and Wee Barclay played noisily on the floor in front of the farting sofa. She hardly had to turn at all in her chair to be able to watch them, which she found herself doing more often than she should have.

It seemed to be going well for the first half hour or so, until Wee Barclay began to cry a sustained, pitchy bleat. Robin ignored it for a minute, not wanting to give Cormoran the impression she didn’t think he could manage, until she could hear her partner’s frantic cursing increasing.

As she walked through the small corridor past the kitchenette, he was apparently inspecting the child for damage.

“Where does it hurt?” he asked her, despite the fact that Wee Barclay couldn’t tell them her own name and thus this query was bound to be fruitless. Robin chuckled under her breath as she squatted beside the farting sofa to rifle through the bag Barclay had left them, eventually producing an unopened bottle of flavoured rice puff snacks.

She held one out to Wee Barclay and the baby stopped wailing almost immediately, emitting a contented hum instead and grasping Robin’s fist close to her mouth with both hands in hopes of securing more puffs. Robin laughed again as she dealt the baby more snacks.

“How did you know what to do?” Cormoran asked, shaking his head in amazement as he had when she first adopted a fake voice on the phone years before.

“Oh, it’s not that far off from keeping you happy. Just feeding her when she gets lippy, really.”

Cormoran nodded with amusing seriousness. “Maybe I _can_ do this,” he muttered under his breath.

When Barclay returned to fetch his daughter hours later, he was shocked to find her nestled in her blanket against Cormoran’s chest on the farting sofa, the now-empty bottle of snacks beside them.


	5. "Don't move."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh borderline warning for spiders but not really? Also upping the rating today for a ... little bit of language 🙃😅  
> This also sooooooo fucking far past out of character (I used yesterday's writing brain cells elsewhere!) but I liked it anyway, so I hope you do too!

Cormoran was feeling particularly facetious the morning of April first. He wasn’t normally one to buy into the whole April Fool’s shenanigans, but there was a lightness and openness to joking about him lately which only he and his partner knew to attribute to, if not new or young love, then new romance at the least.

Leaning against the counter of the kitchenette, he listened in as Pat filled him in on the highlights of the morning’s post and answerphone messages before raising a mug in askance of whether she, too, would like a cuppa.

“Yes, thanks. You know how I—”

“Capful of milk, no sugar, let the bag sit long enough to hatch larvae…” He smiled at her over his shoulder as poured the boiling water into three mugs.

She laughed hackingly before returning to her account of the agency’s correspondence. As he finished dunking her teabag, he looked at her and pretended to stop cold, placing a carefully counterfeited expression of shock and horror on his face.

“Don’t move,” he told her.

“Oh god, what?” She didn’t look particularly frightened, being the staid and unaffected woman she was.

He crept slowly and cautiously towards her, though his leg didn’t allow for a particularly smooth gait. Once he reached the desk, he paused with his hand above her head.

“Fuck, is it a spider? Hate those creepy buggers, there’s no need for any creature to have so many goddamn legs.”

“Yeah, it’s…” Cormoran allowed his voice to trail off gently, as if he were pondering how to extricate the arachnid, before spreading his arms and moving down closer, though not invasively, toward her face in one rapid movement and yelling “BOO!”

“Fuck! Who the hell do you think you fucking are, trying to bloody scare me, you incompetent hopalong ninja bastard? You take your shitty larvae tea and pour it down your trousers and I hope it burns your dick so I never have to see your smug, stupid smile again. I swear to fucking God I’ll walk out of this office if you don’t stop being such an idiotic cunt, and then you’ll be swimming in a sea of bloody invoices you’re too incompetent to keep track of, and you’ll _drown._

Cormoran could hardly hear her string of fluent profanity over his booming laughter, but he silenced immediately when heard Robin, from the inner office, call out, “Alright, Pat?”

The office manager glared at her boss before calling out, “Come get your bloody stupid boyfriend and teach him how to behave!”

Cormoran’s jaw dropped.

“Yeah, that’s right, the little detectives think they’re so smart and secretive pulling the wool, but you can’t hide shit from a secretary. Been this way in every office there ever was. I known from day one, Mister Hotshot Private Eye.”

He shook his head and smirked, his good mood none the lesser for the outing of his secret. He’d known what kind of reaction he was asking for when he’d decided to scare her, and at least this would make things with Robin easier during the day.

He turned to fetch Pat’s tea from the counter and pass it to her. As he did so, Robin’s disembodied voice floated from behind the wall of the kitchenette. 

“Don’t think this means you can kiss me in the office, Cormoran! Rules are rules!”


	6. Is it working?

There was nothing that made a Monday morning easier than absolutely loving your job more than just about anything else on earth. This was a fact Robin Ellacott felt blessed to have learned over the past five years. But even private detectives living out their childhood dreams had the occasional dreary Monday.

Today was _not_ one of those days. After a brief morning team meeting, she ran back up the stairs to Cormoran’s flat to grab the bag she’d stashed there the night before, full of thrifted accessories and unfamiliar makeup she was hoping to marshal into a getup befitting of a candidate interviewing at an understated, high-class strip club.

Returning to the office, she procured the backlit makeup mirror she kept for just this purpose out of the bottom drawer of the partners’ desk, where it lived beside Cormoran’s many unnecessary, long-outdated charging leads.

As she organized her many supplies, he ventured out to the kitchenette to make a round of teas. By the time he returned, she had inky navy contacts in both eyes and one of her lids coated in iridescent lavender shadow, winged liner, and impractically long false lashes. He stood behind her for a moment after placing the mugs carefully on the desk in front of her, holding her mismatched gaze in the mirror and rubbing the stress from her trapezius muscles. As he leant down to kiss the crown of her head, leaving his nose there for a fraction of a minute and inhaling the scent of the second-rate shampoo she kept in his shower but which he secretly preferred to her posher brand given the erotic associations of the cheaper one, she was struck with the memory of Matthew, similarly reflected in a mirror behind her half-disguised face three years before. How different the moments were, and how different the men.

She reached up to her shoulder and squeezed the hand that rested there, bringing it to her unvarnished lips to place a kiss into his palm. He curled his fingers in a protective fist around it, not letting her love go.

When her face was finally completed and she’d donned a realistic wig of golden curls, she walked over to close the office door, thankful not for the first time for its mirrored glass, and methodically stripped out of her professional attire. It didn’t occur to her to be hesitant or self-conscious or ask whether office nudity was an acceptable boundary to cross; there was nothing he hadn’t seen, and it was both more spacious and more efficient to change in the office than the cramped loo on the landing.

Robin’s gaze was fixed somewhere above the window as she pondered which accent to adopt for her character. Would the interviewer prefer something posh and crisp-vowelled, or were wealthy men more turned on by something outside their social circle’s definition of acceptability?

She didn’t notice that Cormoran had been frozen in admiration for a minute or more, his tea raised most of the way to his mouth but not a sip taken. A small amount splashed onto his collar with a jolt when she looked down and made eye contact just as she finished pulling a silk miniskirt down, inch by tugging, wrinkling inch, to cover her sheer stockings.

“Is it working?”

He made no answer except for the mumbled _fuck_ she gathered was not a reply to her question but rather to the difficulty his brain faced in deciding where to look. At the suggestively almost-hidden hints of her cleavage, her more prominently displayed thighs, or her carefully different eyes?

She repeated her question. “Is it working, Cormoran? The look?”

He shook his head but failed to clear it. “Not in a professional way, no.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of your lovely comments and kudos! They always make me smile; y'all are fun to hang out with :)


	7. "Is something bothering you?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was not in a writing mood yesterday so this baby's a day late! Today's will be added momentarily... when it's written. Haha I admire all of you who write in advance you're my queens/kings/nonbinary royalty xo
> 
> I.... truly have no idea where this plot came from. Please don't look too hard or ask deep questions because it's about as undeveloped in my head as it is on paper/screen. Hope it's enjoyable nonetheless!

“That’s hardly an appropriate nickname for a client, Cormoran!” Robin tilted her head back and laughed at his vulgar but apt suggestion.

“That’s never stopped us before.” He wasn’t wedded to his recommendation and had known his partner would never approve, but had in fact hoped for precisely this outcome: the faint glimmer of her eyes which mirthful teariness never failed to bring, and the slight shaking of her torso, which was wrapped cosily in his favourite of her sweaters, the clinging cream one.

“Maybe it didn’t stop _you._ But there’s no way in hell I’m writing that on a case file, or on the rota, or saying it in my head. Try again.”

She was still smiling to herself and faintly shaking her head as she looked down at the desk between them, where her phone buzzed with an incoming notification.

The moment she saw it, her face slackened and then immediately tightened, with furrowed brows and rolled-in lips.

“Is it Michelle? She’s got to get her sea legs sooner, Robin; you’re coddling her by answering her questions every fifteen minutes.”

Their newest subcontractor had started earlier in the week and needed a (to Cormoran) frustrating amount of reassurance that she was doing a good job in order to have the confidence to act independently. For obvious reasons, tantamount among them his near-universal bristliness, Michelle had turned not to Cormoran but to Robin for this support. Though it was time consuming, Robin was confident that with enough positive reinforcement, their new hire would be settled and self-starting in no time. Plus, though she hadn’t verbalized this to her partner, it was nice to be seen by _someone_ as an experienced and authoritative leader in the agency.

“No. ‘S personal.” Robin’s thumbs moved uncharacteristically slowly over the screen of her mobile.

Strike was concerned now. There was very little they didn’t share nowadays, personal or professional.

Robin never mentioned the message she’d received but was uncharacteristically silent for the rest of the morning, and then out on surveillance for the majority of the afternoon. When she texted at just past seven that she’d finally secured the photos they needed to update their client the following Monday, he decided to call her rather than messaging back. The call had nearly gone to voicemail before she answered, breathing heavily.

“Hi Cormoran, it’s not –”

“Is something bothering you?” He’d always had hard-won, admirable, and above all highly functional social skills, but he was too concerned for his partner to think particularly carefully about how aggressively his words may come across. 

“No, I’m fine. It’s nothing for you to worry over, love.”

The subtle endearment, which he would have found matronly and patronizing from anyone but her, had begun slipping out from time to time. He wasn’t sure if she’d noticed, or if she had, whether it was an intentional ploy to soften him to her whims and plans. It most often happened when she was attempting to convince him of her safety or of the superiority of her strategies, and thus the sound of it now did little to comfort him about the situation she was facing.

“Are you home?” He hoped such a question would illuminate what she planned to do when she got there, and thus tell him what had been occupying her mind all day.

“Turning up the street now.”

He hmmed in acknowledgment. They stayed in silence together for a moment more, before it was violently broken by a scream — Robin’s own.

After the scream of fear and a grunt which sounded decidedly more masculine, he heard her whisper-yelling.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

The line was cut.

He sat in dim Denmark Street and panic for a moment, trying to recall the pattern of the numbers he sometimes heard Robin whispering under her breath. He was unable to remember the words but emulated the pattern of her breathing and breath-holding for a minute or more before setting off toward Charing Cross Road, where he hailed a cab and urged the driver to make the route to Earl’s Court as rapidly as one could without risking death, if not the fear of it.

Cormoran climbed the two flights up to the flat Max owned as rapidly as his leg would allow. There was nothing amiss outside, and from the street he had noticed the lights of the upper floors gleaming warmly through the curtains. He hoped Robin was safely and cosily tucked into the well-lit rooms, and not tugged messily to a dark corner of London’s streets.

He knocked somewhat aggressively on the door, which nudged it open. His heart leapt into his stomach and up to his throat, bypassing his chest altogether. His Robin would never leave the door on its latch, not after everything they’d seen.

Stepping loudly — his gait was never particularly subtle — through the sitting room, he could just see the back of Robin’s figure in the doorway to the kitchen, her arms sternly crossed. His fear receded slightly at the sight of her in one piece. Angry though she may be at the shadow of a presence Cormoran couldn’t yet make out, she was safe. But from Robin’s aggressive stance and lack of concern for the obvious noise of an intruder, Cormoran could sense that the tall figure was not an invited guest.

He hoped it wasn’t Matthew. No matter what peace or nonviolence Robin wanted, it would feel damn good to deck the man, and to find an outlet for the fear which had been coiled within his gut for three quarters of an hour.

He was close enough to Robin now that he needed to make his presence known before he startled her by appearing from behind.

“Ellacott? You alright? Is this man bothering you?”

He was now close enough to see the man’s face, which he couldn’t register but knew was familiar.

“Is he fuck? Has been for 29 bloody years.”

It was her brother, then. Not the more enjoyable one whom he’d sat beside at Robin’s horrific wedding reception, or the prick whom he’d intellectually levelled on Valentine’s, but the third one. Mark?

“Your door wasn’t closed. And if you let an intruder this far into your house unacknowledged, we may have to revisit some of the cases you’re managing, Robin, because –”

“We will _not,_ be revisiting anything.” She turned to fix him with the stern stare her brother had previously been receiving, though she softened somewhat and gently squeezed his arm when she noted his faint trembling and sunken, worried eyes. “I knew it was you. Heard you on the stairs.”

“It’s just, on the phone – and you didn’t call back – you have to know where that sent me Robin. Mentally. What I was thinking, remembering.”

She slid her hand down his arm to tuck her small hand within his remarkably smooth palm. It still sent shivers through her; she’d expected calluses. As she leaned into her partner’s side and chastely kissed each of his knuckles, she glared at Martin once more.

“Do you see what you’ve done? We all get sacked once or twice, but you’re nearly thirty; you can’t go running off and ignore your calls like a fucking child. This is what that does to people. We were scared.”


	8. "I'm scared."

Even when his special ringtone woke her in the middle of the night, Robin’s heart never failed to skip a beat at the sight of Cormoran’s name illuminating her phone screen. At the fact that he wanted to speak to _her,_ at whatever odd hour, about whatever odd subject. 

There were the odd times, though, when the unexpectedness affected her heartbeat for an entirely different reason: worry for him.

She didn’t bother to wipe the bleariness from her eyes before answering the call.

“Cormoran?”

“R’bin.” He practically sighed her name. “My R’bin. You always save the day.”

“What’s wrong, Cormoran?” He was clearly plastered.

“Nothing now. R’bin’s here.”

“That’s good, Cormoran. Can you tell me where you are, though? It will help Robin to save the day.”

She was already slipping into trainers, only pulling a hoodie over her old t-shirt and leggings.

“No. Don’t think so. She’s a detective, Robin. Best – best I got. She’ll find me.”

“Well, yes,” she reasoned. “But the best detectives have to interview sources, right? To get their information?”

“I’m the mark.” He laughed, and eventually the sound faded into hiccups. “I’m your mark.”

“I’ll need to find out my mark’s routine, his accomplices, what he does for fun…” Robin did need to know where he was, but more than that wanted to keep him on the line. 

“My accomplice is Nick. His brother’s a prick. He said something that made Ilsa sick. So the accomplice needed a pick… me up… and now I’m fucking sloshed, R’bin.” Cormoran’s enthusiasm for his rhyming scheme declined dramatically over the course of his sentence. Robin laughed.

“Where’s your accomplice now?”

“In a cab. Or at home. Dunno.”

Robin _was_ the best he’d got, so she considered it within her duty of care to look after her mark’s accomplice, as well. She texted Ilsa. _Is Nick home?_

“And did you get in a cab, as well?”

“No. Wanted to walk, saving my money. But I don’t know where I turned wrong, and now I’m sat on a bench an’ I don’t know which way to go and my heart said, ‘Robin. You turn to Robin,’ and now you’re saving the day.”

Robin suppressed the coo of fondness which was desperate to escape. It wasn’t like Cormoran to be this affected by drink; she was concerned about how much he’d had. And about his much smaller “accomplice.” Just as the thought crossed her mind, she received a reply from Ilsa.

_Yes, and beyond trashed. Trying to make him throw up but the gastroenterologist knows the smell of ipecac and won’t let my finger near his throat._

_Do you know where they went? Cormoran “got lost” on his way home._ Robin sent an eye roll emoji to accompany her message.

_Somewhere in his neck of the woods. Tottenham maybe?_

Robin knew just the spot he’d likely landed himself. There were no benches along the route from the pub to his flat, but there was a neat row of them alongside the edge of the pavement on the side street accessed by making a right turn one block too early.

She found him in no time, precisely where she thought he’d be. His blank stare was replaced with puppy-like, bright-eyed affection when she appeared. _Best he’d got, indeed._

“My R’bin. You came.”

“Course I did. My Cormoran needed me.”

That was probably more affectionate than she should have allowed herself to be outwardly.

“D’you know how to get home from here, R’bin?”

She nodded and stretched out her hands to pull him up from the bench. “Bloody marvel,” he muttered, shaking his head in amazement at her. She didn’t know whether this was about her sense of direction or her upper body strength, but just hummed along her agreement as she pulled his arm across her shoulders and tucked her fingers through his beltloop to steady him.

It was slow and stumbly progress to reach his flat, and it took considerable negotiation and bribery to persuade him to continue up the final flight of stairs rather than allowing him to capitulate and spend the night on the office sofa. He wasn’t always one for delayed gratification when inebriated.

She began to boil the kettle after depositing him on his bed, hoping to give him enough time and privacy to change into his pajamas, remove his leg, and get settled. But when she entered his bedroom with a mug in each hand, he was exactly as she’d left him. 

“Cormoran, you were meant to be getting ready for bed.”

He grunted but didn’t move. She set the mugs down, noting the corner of what appeared to be a t-shirt and flannel pants from under his pillow. So he tucked his pajamas there when he made the bed. This endeared her to him, though she didn’t know why. She pulled the clothes free, but as soon as she turned to him with the t-shirt in her hands, his arm shot upward, and he grabbed her wrist. 

“Don’t. It’s too much.”

He proceeded to fumble out of his button up with great difficulty, getting his arm stuck in the sleeve and moaning a curse which smelled of whisky. He pulled away when Robin moved to help, and the action knocked him backward onto his pillows with his arms still stuck behind – or now under—his torso. He remained motionless, seemingly undesiring of expending the effort movement would require.

Robin placed her hand on his jaw, feeling the faint scrub of the stubble which had grown over the course of a long day. He squeezed his eyes shut, which wrinkled his already tight and pained face.

“Why won’t you let me love you, Cormoran?”

She hadn’t expected he would answer; if she’d thought it likely she would not have asked. But her heart dropped to her stomach when he whispered in reply, “I’m scared.”

“But I’m your Robin,” she said. “I save the day.”

“P’cisely.”

She was half sure he’d fallen asleep and set to work gently tugging his arms from behind his back and slipping them out of his shirt. When he began mumbling again, his words carried the quality of a practiced expert reciting a list he’d committed to memory.

She hadn’t meant to pay him any mind, but as she pulled his pajama top over his curls, she noted her name escaped the neckline of the t-shirt in time with his chin.

“Try not t’but I fancied ‘er since you first took off y’r coat in my office. Try not t’and I won’ give names t’what I feel for you an’ I know it’s too much an’ I want peace from the bullshit tha’ love brungs-brought-brings in i’s wake an’ I wanna be alone an’ unburden an’ free an’ ‘ave my flat an’ you have the office an’ there are lines, R’bin. Lines I can’t cross but I don’ want some other bastard t’ persuade you int’a second marriage if maybe… but we’d go wrong, R’bin, an’ I’d lose you for good and that’s the one thing I can’t ever do b’cos what we’ve built together is my greatest achievemen’ an’ it’ll be forever fucked b’cos no one could fill your role an’ everything would be tainted by the memory of you. Forever, R’bin. ‘S riskier than Mucky-Fucking-Ricky.”

He’d clearly thought a lot about the subject. Finally having gotten the hem of his shirt untwisted and his shoes and leg removed while he was preoccupied with his fear of loving her, she now sat beside him on his bed. As he’d so thoroughly explained, there were lines, and she figured removing his pants would be crossing one of them.

“Letting me love you isn’t risky, Cormoran.” He let his head fall to one side so that he could stare up at her.

“Letting me love you isn’t risky, because I’ve already been doing it.” She stroked the side of his face once more. “I’ve been doing it for years and it hasn’t ruined the agency, or your privacy up here in your flat, or your achievement or vocation and it hasn’t brought shit in its awake and it hasn’t burdened you. And no bastard is going to persuade me into a second marriage, because only one man can do that, and it’s you.”

He jerked in surprise, reached up to her face suspended somewhat angelically above him, finally after a half-decade of wanting to ran his fingers through the fiber-soft ends of her hair.

“Are you proposing marriage, Ellacott?” He slurred, unable to keep a laugh out of his voice at the sheer _joy_ of the moment.

“Not yet.” She grinned down at him. “I reckon I should’ve kissed you properly first.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The drunken rambling paragraph is VERY HEAVILY paraphrased from TB, so not mine! Hope you enjoyed this fluffy, belated installment :)


	9. "I have to do this."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really need to stop coming up with Whole Ass Cases and Plots that I have neither the time nor the energy to explain fully. Hope these little shorts are enjoyable nonetheless!

Robin hardly noticed when Pat rose from her desk and closed the door to the inner office in response to her bosses’ raised voices. It felt, sometimes, like she and Cormoran were going in circles, rowing the same rows four years on and never living out the resolutions they tentatively reached.

“You promised you’d be more reasonable when discussing my safety.” Her words weren’t quite a yell but were delivered with force.

She needed to make her point clear; it had been one of her biggest concerns, in extending her partnership with Cormoran across new boundaries, that he would feel he had a right to exert his opinions on the matter more strongly.

“Reasonable doesn’t mean just giving in!” he shouted. Lowering his voice, he continued. “And I _was_ reasonable about Shady; I trusted you and you did great. But if a train comes along at the wrong time, Robin – That’s not a situation you can get yourself out of by being a good investigator, even if you are the best in the entire damned capital.”

“I have to do this,” she pleaded earnestly. “I’m the only one small enough. You’ll never fit, and if what TM said was true, we can’t just let this go on.”

The client, whom Pat had insensitively nicknamed Track Marks for his suspicion that a covert drugs ring was operating within the tunnels of the London Underground, had hired them to tail a man he’d suspected was one of the primary dealers. He had not hired them to go crawling around train tunnels, running the risk of being flattened to the wall like bad graffiti at any moment. But they’d uncovered more sinister evidence than they’d expected, and Robin feared it put all of TfL’s customers at risk.

“If their meth lab truly could cause an explosion on the Underground, Robin, we should be going to the police. Not crawling along with a camera trying to be absolutely sure before you die.”

“But what about TM? I need to—”

“What _we_ need to do Robin, is keep people safe. And bring justice, always. And in this one case, the Met are better suited for it than we are.”

“What do they have that—?”

“Bloody hell Robin, they can stop the trains! They can go in without getting smashed! That’s their _only_ advantage, and if you’re really so keen to work in an environment where resources aren’t a constraint then be my guest and fucking apply to the Police Academy, but they won’t let you get yourself bloody killed any more than I will. And there’s shitloads of paperwork to go along with those resources and power, so if you want a fulfilling career, I’d suggest you stay right here.”

“A suggestion made purely out of concern for my professional fulfillment.” She’d begun to lose steam, understanding his point now and that his concern was not driven by the fear which had nearly become a trigger point for her over the years. She walked towards him, wrapping her arms around his waist and leaning her head against his warm, homey chest.

“I’m afraid it was pure self-interest, actually. You’re not leaving me anytime soon, Ellacott.”


	10. "Give me five minutes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much shorter today (which means I actually knew where I was going the whole time, haha). But this is one of my faves! Hope you like it, and bonus points if you can guess my favorite line, as well :)

Robin was resisting the urge to look down at the notes on her desk, trying to push the implications her unexpected visitor would have on the day’s rota to the back of her mind. It was wrong to begrudge Lucy’s presence when she had only the best of intentions, and beyond that, a heartbreakingly good point, despite Robin’s hesitance to accept the reality of it.

“I’m just worried he’ll be taken by surprise when it happens, is all. If you could convince him to come down for a weekend, take a couple of days off, and he saw how Ted looked –”

The sound of a ringing phone emanated from the front room, which was home to a client waiting area and Pat’s desk. The noise cut Lucy off. Robin smiled apologetically as she pressed the button to forward the call to her line.

“So sorry, Luce, our office manager’s not in today. Give me five minutes.”

Lucy nodded and began rifling through her handbag for a respectful level of distraction.

“Strike and Strike Detective Agency, how can we help?”

It was her husband’s voice. “This stakeout’s boring as fuck, and the car’s too cold without you on me.”

Robin hoped Lucy couldn’t hear the other end of the phone conversation, nor see the flush she felt creeping up her neck.

“There’s someone in the office,” she replied flatly, unwilling to lead the conversation down the track he obviously desired.

“You’ll have to get creative, then, so they don’t know what you really mean,” he panted into her ear. She found herself almost turned on before the memory of her and Lucy’s previous topic of conversation sent her crashing back to an un-aroused reality.

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid we won’t be able to offer that service at the moment, but if you call back in an hour, our office manager may be able to add you to a waiting list.”

She hung up without waiting for his response.

“So, Lucy, you were saying?”

“Was that my brother?”

_Bugger._


	11. "Is everything okay?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is kind of not angsty? Or it's at least somewhat comically angsty. And I beat my personal sprint record writing it, so yay!!

Robin’s calves were aching after a solid four days on her feet, and she was grateful when she awoke Friday morning to realize an office day lay ahead of her. She stretched, feeling contented cracks emanating from her toes and lower back, before rolling out of bed.

She chided her inner adolescent as she dressed. Fourteen-year-old Robin forced her thirty-year-old self to choose a nice dress and flats, a cardi in a shade she knew Cormoran liked, and the lip colour he’d commented on when she’d donned some for a cover the month before. 

She had given up lying to herself about the depth of her feelings for her work partner and friend some months before, though she was quite confident he still had no idea. She had also, during the weekly chore of calling her mum the previous Sunday, made the mistake of letting slip something about Cormoran’s respect for her creativity and keen intelligence in closing one of their trickier recent cases. Linda had made a snide comment about Cormoran saying such things because he was in love with her daughter, and Robin, in the heat of the moment, had raged that he respected her as a _colleague_ and _friend_ and would never love her back, so any unprofessional feelings were beside the point.

Her mother had been silent, keying Robin in to her mistake, and then she pounced before the investigator could pull together any semblance of a defense.

“It’s quite pathetic of you to imagine you could ever nurture something to life, given the hours you’re working. Any new relationship would be dead in the water. You really should cut back and take more time for yourself while you’re young and beautiful; it would be nice if you could settle back down.”

Robin had been infuriated and had, despite her insistence only moments before that Cormoran would never feel romantically towards her, found herself defending him. If they were nurturing something new together, she’d sworn to her mother, they’d each pick up the slack when the other was overworked, able to balance one another and share the brunt of the labour that a partnership, no matter how rewarding, would certainly require.

This conversation was on Robin’s mind for the majority of her commute. This morning would be the first time she’d seen Cormoran since the phone call, and she could only hope her face didn’t burst into flames immediately.

He wasn’t in their shared office when she entered, though his workspace was covered in files and a jacket hung from the back of his chair, suggesting he’d only momentarily stepped out. 

This was all she noticed before her eyes fell on her new plant on the windowsill. On the leaves which lay at the base of it, and scattered across the carpet as well, all yellowed or browned and crunchily, thoroughly dead.

It had been a gift from one of their satisfied recent clients, the owner of a posh local nursery which had fallen victim to herbicide poisoning by one of its major competitors. He’d allowed Robin, who’d spent a week undercover as a shop assistant, to pick any plant of her choice on her last day, and she’d chosen this one, which had elegant trailing leaves and cheery pink and yellow flowers and which she’d been promised, though she now doubted its power, would promote a loving, peaceful, and harmonious environment.

If someone could remember to fucking water it when his far better half was out on surveillance.

How wrong Robin had been about him. She’d sworn to her mother that this man would pick up her slack, she’d sworn very specifically that he’d do so when she was out on surveillance, even. And she’d been confident he wouldn’t need prodding to remember to do such basic maintenance, but that he would be well enough in tune with her to know what their joint endeavours needed without being asked.

How bloody wrong indeed.

Robin found herself, mortifyingly, crying softly as she tended to her plant, picking up the dead leaves and petals and tucking them into the dry soil of the pot to be safely composted back into the plant where they belonged. Her shoulders shook and coppery wisps of her hair stuck to her damp cheeks. Not wanting to face Pat in her current state, she couldn’t take the plant to the kitchen sink or even to the loo on the landing, given that she’d still have to pass through the outer office to do so. 

Casting about for an acceptable solution, she spotted the posh navy water bottle Pat had gifted Cormoran for his birthday. She lifted it from his desk and was pleased to note it was satisfyingly heavy. Full. He deserved to go thirsty, bloody no-good plant-murderer.

But Robin didn’t empty the entire bottle, despite considering doing so into the cushion of his desk chair where it would likely go unnoticed until it soaked his trousers from underneath. She was still crouched beside her beloved plant baby, fingers deep in the soil attempting to determine whether it was damp up to one knuckle or two, trying to apply the lessons she’d learned from her brief sham-employment at the nursery and wondering whether Roger would be able to revive her baby if she dropped her off at his shop, when Cormoran returned to the inner office.

He had expected that the sight of her after nearly a week apart would be refreshing and cheering, but he was immediately set off balance by the sight of his normally steady work partner disheveled and audibly sobbing. 

“Robin? Is everything okay?”

He approached her tentatively as he spoke, then froze with arms raised beside his head when she whirled on him, yelling.

“Does it _look_ like everything’s okay?! No! It’s not!”

“What’s happ—”

She cut him off. “Can you seriously not be bothered to water a bloody plant, Cormoran? I know you’re hardly a nurturer, but there are infinitely more complex skill sets you possess, and I refuse to believe that it’s beyond the capacities of such a talented man to look after a pot of fucking dirt.”

She paused, feeling guilty over her disgrace for the dead, and whispered a teary apology to her plant baby.

Cormoran began slowly, tentatively approaching her once more. “I’m sorry, Robin, I didn’t mean to kill your plant—”

“Julia! Her name was Julia.”

“I didn’t mean to kill _Julia,_ but she was, well, a plant, and if you had asked, I—”

“I shouldn’t have to ask, Cormoran!”

He knew better than to ask whether hormones were a contributing factor to the emotion which appeared inappropriately irrational to him. Joan _had_ raised him well. So he employed a tried-and-true trick of investigators, not sure whether it would work on the colleague to whom he’d first taught it, but it did.

“How are we ever meant to nurture a relationship, Cormoran, when we can’t even keep a damn plant alive? Huh? If four days’ surveillance will kill an office plant then I best shut down my dreams of marriage to such an incompetent, workaholic fool real fucking quick. _Four days’ surveillance!_ Anything we had would be dead before it even began.”

She was focused angrily, fiercely, on his face, which was scrunched in confusion and pain and guilt. He hadn’t known it was a test, hadn’t studied, had thought he’d waved goodbye to such spur-of-the-moment examinations years ago from the butt end of an ashtray.

“No, Robin, I promise I could nurture—well – you, I could do a better job, I –”

Neither of them noticed the office door opening then rapidly closing once more. Barclay looked to Pat with a stunned expression. She only shrugged. “Been like that since he came in. Dunno.”

“Ye reckon I should go out and get a round of coffees for the staff meeting?” he asked.

“I reckon we should go together,” the office manager rasped.


	12. "Don't flatter yourself."

“Robs, really. I’m bored as shite on Clarkson, please can we switch?”

“If you wanted me to take your job, telling me how boring it is was hardly a convincing advertisement, Sam.”

Robin rolled her eyes. She had known it was boring when she filled out the rota, which was why she hadn’t claimed it for herself in the first place. 

“You’re right. But, well, you might find some of it fulfilling, there’s ah—a library nearby, you could read?”

“Not switching.”

Robin tipped her head back to let the crumbs pour from her crisp packet and into her mouth. Barclay passed her a water bottle from the cooler bag at his feet. Though she was confident he did so to get into her good graces, she didn’t mention it.

“Ta.”

“Nae problem.”

They sat in silence a moment, regarding the house in front of them, which was dark save for one upstairs light. The London streets were cold, dark, and quiet, and Robin was beginning to doubt that their mark’s suspected lover wouldn’t leave before Cormoran arrived to take over from them in the morning.

“What if I took the Catwalk Case?”

“Michelle’s on that, and she’s doing just fine. Used to do a bit of modelling back in her uni days so she’s fit in like an old glove, apparently.”

“Right, well, I was thinking maybe we could try a honeypot approach. Diversify our tactics, if ye will. I could sweet talk a few o’ the models, try tae get tae know them, we’ll close it in half the time.”

“Puts you back on Clarkson twice as fast.”

“Fuck.”

It was minutes before either of them spoke again. Barclay read Robin jokes from the wrappers of his sweets, and she edited them into saucier versions as she’d done with her brothers when they were younger, and they had a generally merry time, save for their occasional pauses to ensure no change had been made on the status of the house they were surveilling.

It was a bit of a non-sequitur when he said, gesturing toward Robin with a half-unwrapped lolly, “You do have tae admit, though—”

“I don’t have to do anything.”

“If we _were_ to place a honeypot…”

“I don’t like where this is going—”

“I would be the logical choice. Not tae be crass, but if we’re looking for a bloke at the office who’s fit enough tae bag a supermodel…”

Robin threw her head back and laughed. “Don’t flatter yourself. Cormoran shagged a model once.”

“It doesnae count if it was you undercover, Boss.”

“Oh, sod off. A proper one, as well, back during the Lula Landry case.”

“Did ye just admit you are shagging him, then?”

“What? No — oh, fuck’s sake. Focus on your binoculars and shove it, Samuel Hamish Barclay.”

“How d’ye know about that?! Middle names should be off limits!”

 _So should my sex life,_ she thought, but she did not say it aloud, because Sam was her friend, and she knew that if he had ever imagined his teasing would hit truth, he would not have said it. The rapidly reddening tips of his ears told her he was just as mortified as she.

“I know your passport number, too, so I’d hush up if I were you before my boss got tempted to start making some anonymous tip-offs, yeah?”

He turned to look out the window. “You’d lose your best employee,” he grumbled under his breath. “Fucking Hamish. Can’t believe you, Venetia.”


	13. "Who told you that?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea for this little fic first came to me in July, back when I first started writing fic for this fandom, but I never got around to writing it, and then it fit so well with today's prompt! I hope you enjoy it!  
> (... I just almost typed my email signature here out of habit. lmao. that would have been embarrassing.)

“How’s your murder trial going?” Ilsa asked as she stirred the pasta sauce she had simmering for hers, Nick’s, and Robin’s dinner.

“Good. Not many new developments; with the evidence we had, there’s little he can do to defend himself. How’s yours?”

Ilsa sighed. “Not looking great, considering I’m trying to keep her out of prison.”

Robin looked up pensively. And the distraction caused the knife she was using to slice their vegetables to slip, grazing her left thumb. She popped it in her mouth out of habit to ease the pain, then realized she was in someone else’s kitchen and moved toward the sink to wash her hands.

“Do you ask your clients whether they’re guilty before you defend them?”

Ilsa laughed. “Yes, though sometimes they lie. I’m generally good at sussing out the ones who are genuine liars versus the naturally suspicious types, the nervous Nellies, those unfortunate enough to just have a shit alibi but for no bad reason. Some lawyers don’t have a problem with it, defending people they know are lying or are otherwise guilty, but with serious crimes I don’t do it. I can’t pour months of my life investigating and defending lies; it’s soul-sucking and not what I spent years of schooling and sucking up to hiring managers for. I became a lawyer to defend justice, and truth.”

Robin smiled.

“What?”

“You just sound like Cormoran, is all. I reckon you must have had a profound influence on each other growing up.”

Ilsa smiled. “Of course. He’s my oldest mate, even though I’m not his. I used to think I was his best mate, at least, but now I reckon you’ve probably got me beat there.” She eyed Robin shrewdly, having to turn her back on the pot to do so.

“No, no, I doubt it. We may spend every second together but we’re not that close. You know, our brains are always on the same wavelength with work matters, but personally, well, there’s a lot we haven’t said.”

“Like what?” Ilsa was enthralled now, giving her houseguest her full attention. If she was hoping for a profession of undying love, she would have been disappointed.

“Well, you know, just personal things. Your pot’s boiling over.” She waited for Ilsa to sop up the splatterings which marred the cooktop. “Just didn’t tell him about how unhappy I was. My marriage was my own. My trauma is my own. Just as his is his. Some things aren’t meant to be shared.”

Ilsa hmmed under her breath, acknowledging but not agreeing with the statement, as she often did in hopes of encouraging witnesses to elaborate during cross-examination. It did not work on the highly skilled investigator, and Ilsa should not have expected that it would.

She changed the subject, and indeed changed her tactic, as she stirred the pot in front of her. “And Jeremy? How’s that going?”

“Good. It’s been three dates now, and I mean, I’m far from wowed, but I should probably think about how far I want to take things before this weekend. He’ll start to expect things, of course.”

Ilsa hmmed again; she could not bring herself to make any acknowledgement which could possibly be misconstrued as acceptance or endorsement of Robin’s statement.

“What do you like about him?” 

“Well, he listens when I talk about work, and isn’t controlling when I’m late to our plans. He has hobbies and a healthy work-life balance and never gaslights me or shows signs he wants to hit me… And I mean physically… well actually he’s kind of spindly, you know he’s not exactly Cormoran in that element, but physically it’s good.”

Ilsa decided not to comment on the fact that Robin had just acknowledged Cormoran’s physicality or appeal as superior to a lackluster romantic partner, so thrilled was she that it had been said and so concerned about the other context with which Robin had presented the man. Robin was not a woman who lacked in self-respect, but this indelible part of her character, it seemed, had not made its way into her taste in men. 

“That doesn’t sound exactly like he’s an introduce-me-to-your-parents level of a catch, Robin.”

“Well, no, he’s far from perfect. But aren’t we all? I ought to be realistic about my prospects here, Ils. He must be somewhere around the best I can do.”

“Who told you that?” Ilsa’s voice was practically a growl, so deep and serious and un-amused was her tone.

Robin said nothing as she offered her new friend a bowl of vegetables to be added to their sauce. 

Not for the first time, Ilsa wondered precisely what kind of hell marriage to Matthew had been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always for your lovely kudos and comments! It's so much fun to see all the many new sides of our characters through the many October challenges, and to experience that together!! :)


	14. "What are you smiling about?"

Robin was greatly looking forward to the agency’s first staff meeting after Michelle’s arrival. Though Pat joined them sometimes and would be doing so tonight, she’d been tired of being the only female investigator.

Things were better with Cormoran present, of course, than they’d been when she’d been painstakingly leading the team solo while he was in Cornwall – and while Morris was on payroll. But Robin was nonetheless excited for Michelle’s presence. She was cool in a way Robin often felt incapable of attaining, as if it was something she’d sacrificed by only fleetingly having independence during her early twenties. But Michelle wasn’t cool in a show-offy way; no, in a Vanessa-esque way, she made everyone else around her feel and seem cooler by proximity, and she’d been a joy to have on the team. 

Strike and Robin were finishing up transcribing the notes of their last client meeting, and Sam and Michelle had gone down to grab their order of Japanese food from the new restaurant on the corner. Though Strike had advocated an evening meeting due to it “fitting better with the rota,” which it did, Robin was beginning to suspect he preferred these meetings because they nearly always ordered dinner, and he always got to keep the leftovers. He may think he was slick, but she was a detective. And his best mate.

She heard the door to the outer office opening. It seemed Michelle and Barclay had run into Andy Hutchins, coming in from surveillance on a shifty nanny, on their way up the stairs.

As Robin and Strike exited their office, Michelle was divvying out cartons and passing plates. Oddly enough, she also had a number of mugs arranged on Pat’s desk, even though they seemed to have enough plates for everyone and the kettle was switched off.

“Got mugs in case anyone else wants Miso soup. Wouldn’t work too well on a plate!” Their newest subcontractor laughed cheerfully. “Care for any, Robin?”

Robin gagged and shook her head. “None for me, thanks.”

Strike laughed at his partner’s discomfort. “That was all she ate when she first started working for me.”

Robin wrinkled her nose at the bad memories, bad taste, both in her mouth, but one harder to expunge than the other. “Wedding diet,” she explained.

Michelle nodded understandingly. “I didn’t know you had been married before?” 

Without explanation, she turned immediately to the older and surlier of her two bosses. “Have you been married?” 

Cormoran shook his head. “No, just Robin.”

Pat grinned down at the sticky rice she was struggling to remove from the plastic serving utensil.

“What are _you_ smiling about, Patricia?” Strike ribbed her.

“Nothing.” But her laugh gave her away. At Strike’s playful glare and Robin’s raised eyebrow, she continued. “Well, when you said ‘just Robin,’ it…”

Barclay coughed excessively, but both the noise and his shaking shoulders were more reminiscent of a laugh. “It sounded like…” He trailed off into a coughing fit. Pat joined him, the two so thoroughly amused that the meaning of the joke was never sufficiently explained to its subjects.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope it's clear what the insinuation was? That it felt a bit like he was saying "just Robin" was the one for him/who could persuade him into marriage <3  
> Sorry this is late!! It will definitely happen again though haha.


	15. "Don't come in!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one got a bit out of hand, length-wise. Oops!

Cormoran was bone-weary after a day of moving his meagre possessions out of his former flat at Denmark Street. Though they’d managed to negotiate a bit over a year’s extension on their lease, the building had finally been slated to be gutted and remodeled – no doubt with exponentially higher rents. And besides that, the road works, which were beginning to feel as if they could drag on _another_ five years with no signs of being completed, had begun to make it near-impossible for clients to find their offices.

Cormoran Strike had never been an overly nostalgic person, but then he’d never had a place so thoroughly associated with so many high points of his life, and with so many happy memories: it was there that he’d met Robin and in the same breath seen Charlotte out of his life forever. There he had given her the green dress, solved their first and second and tenth and three hundredth case, some more challenging than others and all impossible to close without her. It was there that he’d told her she was his best mate. There that he’d received the untaintable gift of her confession of love for him and soon after, kissed her intentionally and softly and warmly and passionately for the first and second and three hundredth times. There that he’d taken her to bed for the second time. 

The things they had built together, between their office and his flat, were everything to him: vocation, purpose, fulfillment, life’s dream and life-dream. It was a way of creating a family he hadn’t known had existed, but one he was so glad they’d discovered together. He _almost_ understood the desire of parents to talk about their children nonstop; though he still found it rude and annoying, if he were to give into his every desire to discuss the agency, he’d be nearly as bad.

Robin had industriously found Strike’s new flat for him online, even going so far as to rearrange his surveillance schedule to arrange a viewing for him before even telling him about it. She’d learned the hard way, she’d told him, that the real estate market in London was tight and moved impossibly fast. The new flat was considerably bigger than his old one, and still just narrowly within Zone 1 for a fraction of the price he thought could have been reasonably expected.

Though she was a marvel, and the flat was as well, the increased size had meant he needed a large amount of new furniture. He and Nick had spent the majority of the day on the floor of his sitting room assembling things while Ilsa and Robin flitted between rooms, unpacking all of his belongings into whatever furniture had already been assembled and placed. Normally he would have objected to someone else going through all of his things, and indeed objected to them making choices which would affect his daily life so greatly (what if they put the nightstand on the wrong side of the bed?) but between the two of them, they probably knew him better than he himself did.

At last, Cormoran stood from the uncomfortable floor which had been made their assembly zone, with the help of Nick’s outstretched arms. 

“Should we get a take-away?” 

Nick’s stomach growled in response, and both laughed. “I’ll put the kettle on while we wait. You want to go ask the ladies what they want?”

“Yeah, sounds good. What are you feeling like eating? ‘S’on me.”

Nick rolled his eyes and clapped his taller friend on the shoulder. “Just go for whatever Ils wants, mate. Forget you’re not married sometimes.”

Cormoran pushed down the thought that before Nick had tacked on his comment about marriage, he had been about to say the same in regard to Robin’s food preferences. Odd. 

He walked down his new, short hallway past the powder room and office-cum-guest-room to find that the door to his own bedroom was shut. He couldn’t imagine why they’d have needed to do so.

He could hear concerning giggling coming from inside. When he knocked on the door, each of them began hurriedly hushing the other, all the while still laughing themselves.

“Don’t come in!” Came Robin’s frantic voice. They were surely pranking him in some way.

Time to initiate the guilt-trip, then.

“Nick and I were thinking of ordering a take-away; ladies’ choice since you’ve worked so hard to help me get settled in today. I don’t know what I’d do without the two of you knowing me well enough to unpack for me.”

A whispered argument was taking place inside his bedroom. It seemed Ilsa, at his guilt-tripping, was having second thoughts about whatever they’d decided to do. Robin was telling her to suck it up and stay strong. Either his partner was onto him, or she was a truly ruthless prankster.

“Just the chippy is fine!” she called.

“Doubt they’ll have your mushy peas,” he teased. He could hear Ilsa, who apparently hadn’t known of Robin’s affinity for the nasty side dish, teasing their friend mercilessly.

“I’ll survive,” she called back. “Just this once!” Then she lowered her voice and hissed at Ilsa, “Get that corner or _so fucking help me…_ ”

Interesting.

The door to his room was still closed when the men returned from the chippy, but Ilsa and Robin emerged soon after at the smell of the food. They promised him that they hadn’t done permanent damage to his room, which was a concerningly low bar, but that he’d be able to see their work after dinner. 

He’d almost forgotten it by the time they’d thrown out their containers and grabbed second drinks, due to the raucousness of the teasing group’s dinner banter.

“So, what exactly were you two ladies up to all afternoon?” Nick asked. 

When they opened the door to his bedroom, he was surprised to find not a mess, with his boxers spread across the ceiling fan or water balloons under the duvet as he’d expected, but his furnishings and few possessions arranged neatly around the airy space. Then he turned to his left and noted that the entire wall adjoining the door was papered in a patterned print below the chair rail, like wainscotting. It formed an accent wall of sorts, which while something he wouldn’t have thought to design for himself, was pleasant to look at and matched well with the paint. 

“It looks familiar…” 

“It reminded me of the florals on your quilt, but with more faded colors. So at first I thought, you know, it would be a funny joke, but then I saw the miniature guitars mixed in with the flowers… It reminded me of Denmark Street, and I thought you would like it. It’s all removable adhesive wallpaper, just stickers really, so if you hate it, we can take it back off.”

Robin seemed nervous, if her uncharacteristic over-explanation was any indication.

“No, it’s perfect.” He ran his hand over it, noting the great similarity to the quilt his aunt had picked out for Lucy’s old bedroom, and which had subsequently been passed over to him when he first moved into his flat on Denmark Street. He couldn’t remember if he’d told any of them its origin, but Ilsa likely recognized it from her memories of Ted and Joan’s house when they were younger, and Robin must have known that he’d only have chosen such a loud pattern if it had some deeper meaning. The only difference to the quilt, in fact, were the little stylized guitars, which bore striking similarity to those on their office wall and were mixed in with the flowers. 

He turned around to eye his friends once more. “I was sure this was going to be a prank of some sort.”

Ilsa’s face grew steadily, rapidly red. He began to worry she may explode from keeping in whatever combination of laughter and secrets was hiding behind her tightly pursed lips. Robin made a neck-slashing motion, and the older woman reigned herself in slightly.

“No prank. Though we were afraid you may see it that way, if you didn’t like it. But just a surprise.”

There was a prank though; he should have known not to trust the word of the best liar he knew. He assumed it was the real reason Robin had declined his invitation to stay the night; she’d stayed with him plenty of times on Denmark Street without fresh clothes for the next day. And she didn’t even have anywhere to be Sunday morning. Though he did believe her claim that she had a morning full of laundry to do; he knew she’d been wearing her desperation pants for at least two days.

He found the first one in the drawer they’d chosen for his boxers, socks, and undershirts. It didn’t scare him when it made contact with his hand, but he was amused. 

He found the second in his shower, and it did scare him a bit, even though he should have known better by that point. 

The third was in his bed. Already half-asleep and beyond drowsy, he petted it good night and told it he would introduce it to his leg in the morning. 

He found a fourth in his plate cupboard the next morning. He couldn’t help but laugh at his growing collection of lime green rubber snakes. Whether he’d told Robin of his childhood dream of owning a pet snake, he wasn’t sure, but he liked to imagine she’d been aware of how happy his inner-child-Corm would have been when she’d plotted to hide them amongst his things.

He smiled to himself. This could become an amusing game, hiding them from one another. Life with Robin was great fun in a way he’d never imagined a romantic partnership could be, and he hoped it would last longer than he’d ever imagined a partnership could, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tbh the wallpaper sounds kinda ugly to me haha, but it has *meaning* I guess? It was meant to be a joke, but then I didn't think Robin would do that, so... Alas!


	16. "What's in it for me?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow this is ACTUALLY posted on the PROPER day?! who is this and what has she done with the proper forverhalffull?

“I know the rota’s lookin’ a bit full…”

Sam paused and looked down at his mug, seemingly contemplating how to bring up the subject on his mind.

“What’s wrong?” Robin asked, brows furrowed. Sam was one of the most happy-go-lucky people she knew, and she worried that his hesitance stemmed from a level of concern he’d not yet experienced in the course of their working relationship.

“Is there something on at home? If you need more time off, we can make do, I swear it. I don’t want you ruining your marriage for a job.”

She remembered with a sour taste of irony how Strike had said the same words to her years before, and how she’d taken them far differently than she’d delivered them now. But then her marriage had been different than Sam’s, less healthy.

“No, it’s a side project I had in mind for ye. I was wonderin’ if you could follow m’wife? Just for a day or two.”

“I hardly think that would be appropriate, Sam. With you working here, it could get between our working relationship, I wouldn’t feel comfortable if I found something…”

Barclay threw his head back and laughed. “No, she’s no been cheating. I don’t know what tae get her for her birthday next week, an’ she wouldnae tell me, but she’s off shopping with her girlfriends at the weekend, so I thought you could maybe… see what she’s intae.”

It was Robin’s turn to laugh now, throwing her wadded serviette across the desk at his chest. “Shit, Sam, you had me so concerned!” She shook her head. “Why don’t you just ask her?”

“It’s no’ romantic.”

Robin raised an eyebrow disapprovingly, and he changed his tune. “Alright, fine, fine. It’s cos if I ask, she’s all, ‘oh Sammykins you donae have to, you’re too sweet, only pick something up if it makes you think of me, I don’t need tokens when I have you,’ only I fell for that last year, and then she was a sobbing mess on ‘er birthday when I had nothing, and I felt like a right shite for it.”

“Well, you should have known – Did you ask Cormoran what to do?”

Barclay’s head jerked upwards, and he stared at Robin in amazement. “You’re a bloody marvel! How did you know?”

“He’s a right shit at gift-giving too. Or was.” She eyed him thoughtfully. “You really want me to rearrange the entire week’s rota so that I can spend two days’ unpaid surveillance following your wife around the high streets, just so you can avoid talking to her about what she wants?”

He shifted in his seat like a child who’d been caught out at mischief.

“Well, I didn’t say it would be unpaid, exactly.”

Robin raised an eyebrow. “What’s in it for me?”

He apparently hadn’t thought this far ahead, despite his promise. “I’ll work overtime so you and Cormoran can have the same weekends off.” She didn’t look impressed. “For a month.”

“Why would that be necessary?”

Was she playing dumb? It wasn’t as if she could really trust him as an investigator, yet believe Sam didn’t see what was obviously going on between the partners of the firm?

“So you can spend your weekends together…” he said slowly.

“Hmm, I guess that would be nice.” She paused thoughtfully. “It is hard; it’s been years since I’ve had a proper best mate and now we’re always covering one another at work, so that makes it hard to do best friend activities.”

Barclay scoffed, but quickly hid it when Robin turned to eye him once more. Did she really believe they were just “proper” best mates, or was the lie for his benefit?

“That’s a lot of overtime.”

“I’ll do it, I swear. Cannae disappoint Nat again this year, or I’ll have nowhere tae go home to, an’ I’ll have tae work all day to afford rent on my own, anyway.”

Robin laughed. “Deal. But I’ll be billing you my expenses, and I expect I’ll find myself in need of a particularly expensive lunch.”

“Deal. Thanks, Robs.”


	17. "I'll drive you."

Cormoran sighed as he removed his leg, at long last after an exhaustingly unpredictable day. Robin was already curled up behind him in his childhood bed, fast asleep only minutes after her head had hit the pillow if her deep, even breaths, punctuated every few minutes by a gentle snore, were any indication.

They’d been sharing an office lunch of sandwiches and crisps when Ted had called out of the blue. When Cormoran had picked up the phone, it became quickly apparent that the call was an accidental one, but a fortuitous one. Ted would never have let on to his almost-adopted children that he wasn’t doing well, but the only sound audible to Cormoran were his beloved uncle’s hacking sobs. 

Robin had known something was wrong immediately. She had held his hands as he explained, had hugged him so tightly as he cried internally, his face mushed against her stomach and chest due to the fact that she was standing and he was seated. It had made him feel so strongly like he was a child in need of comforting, and the muscle memory had made him shake even harder, leaf-like.

“I’ll drive you there,” she had said immediately after he had passed from the emotional phase into the logistical, planning-oriented stage of upset. She knew the signs of his transition intimately, though he rarely allowed his sadness to be visible when he could help it.

And she had driven him, a favour he would only have accepted from a very few of the already-selective group of people who were admitted beyond the fortress-like walls of his heart, and which he would have enjoyed accepting only from her. His love, the one and only.

Not only was she the most capable driver he knew, but she could scavenge up a drive’s worth of snacks in an instant, and she knew the perfect balance of small talk and comfortable silence. The journey felt somewhat like a reverse pilgrimage, as they’d made the trip from Falmouth years before at the start of the Bamborough investigation. They’d been just mates then, and he’d slept for hours of the journey, which should have told them both that there was more to heir relationship than either allowed to surface, to meet the eye.

He had been alert today, had tried to focus on work for the first half hour outside of London, until Robin had gently told him, with a hand firmly and fondly squeezing his knee, to set his computer in the backseat and look out the window. When they’d passed the roadside services where they’d once bought English strawberries, she teased Strike about his oldest mate’s dedication to Cornish nationalism, a joke she found funnier now that she could match a face to the name and to the stories. Polworth and his family had loved her, of course. Everyone did.

Ted did. He had looked so genuinely, unfamiliarly happy when he met Robin for the first time, and Cormoran’s heart tugged painfully at the memory of the body language which had reminded him so viscerally of his aunt Joan – squeezing both of her hands simultaneously, then releasing Robin to bring his hands to his mouth, his crinkly eyes teary, and then pulling the woman into a firm hug. 

Cormoran knew, then, the utter truth of the fact that married couples become more like one another, in physicality and in personality, over the course of a life together. He relished in the fact that this essence of his beloved almost-mother still lived on, and in the same breath wondered what gestures he would adopt from Robin after decades together. He had already picked up some of her language, and she had a newfound tendency to transport biscuits from the kitchenette to the office in her mouth in the most unladylike fashion.

He knew, even before his uncle had told her, that his Aunt Joan would have loved Robin. He had told her so, but she had not teared up to his affirmation as she had to Ted’s. She did not yet know about the deepest of affirmations: when Robin had disappeared up the stairs to “get settled,” (which Cormoran had suspected was truly an excuse to allow nephew and uncle time for a private conversation, as she’d only brought the few spare articles of clothing she left in his flat and could not have realistically needed to settle in), Ted had looked at his nephew with a special sparkle in his eyes which the younger had not seen in six years or more. 

He had patted the back of his nephew’s hand, and he had asked when his Cormy-boy planned to make an honest woman out of this lovely Robin girl. He’d been so cheeky as to suggest that if it were not soon, Robin may grow a bone of common sense and realize how much better she could do, though Cormoran knew that if there’d been even the slightest risk of any such thing, it would have happened years before. 

He had then given Cormoran the proper equipment to ask such a question: his Aunt Joan’s gold engagement band, with its aquamarine shining of the Cornish coast, of the sea, of his aunt’s cornflower eyes and final resting place in one. Cormoran protested that the gift was too much; Ted had been wearing it on a chain around his neck since his wife had passed, and Cormoran did not want to take her presence from him. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer and dug out the wooden box he had personally crafted for Joan lifetimes before, when he’d been far more capable of kneeling and had asked her, with his younger but no less skippy heart faltering, to marry him.

“It should stay in the family,” he had said, and he had pressed the box into his nephew’s hand with sufficient firmness as to silence any objections.

He remembered the teasing light in Robin’s eyes as she had entered the Victory for the first time, had said, “so this is your local!,” had accepted the local ale Ted recommended in place of her typical white wine and had fawned over the freshness of the locally-caught fish. He could have kissed her then and there and did, swiftly and eagerly, when Ted stepped away for the toilets. She had so perfectly engaged his uncle in gentle reminiscing, not digging with bloodhound keenness into Cormoran’s traumatic childhood as had been done by the only other woman he’d brought home, and had asked to be introduced to what Joan was like without pushing when Ted became overcome with fondness and emotion, only loving and never hurting.

He remembered how Ted had laughed, only seconds after he’d cried, when Robin told him how shocked she’d been that anywhere on the island of Britain had palm trees. “Oh, a Northern girl. But a good one,” he’d said, squeezing her hand from across the table. Cormoran had preened, an expression which had been uncharacteristic of him only years before, but he now had the pleasure and privilege of acquaintance with the _very best_ woman in the entire world, and anyone who wasn’t proud of her was in need of a kick to the head. Cormoran regretted his ability to put a face to the fact. 

Robin had invited Ted to London, had said that she’d be happy to show him around the office, get his experienced investigator’s insight into their cases, that he could have Cormoran’s flat while Cormoran stayed at her place, and they could see a show at one of the theatres near the office, and take him to one of their favourite restaurants, and on another night around to Nick and Ilsa’s for dinner. _It would be good for him to have something to look forward to,_ she had told Cormoran in the Land Rover on their way to Cornwall and here she was, providing.

He turned over, now, in bed, and pulled Robin closer.

“It’ll be alright, m’love. He’ll be okay. You’re here now.” Her mumbles were hardly coherent, but he was experienced in translating them.

Even in sleep, she knew him.

“We’re here now.”

He fell asleep with a smile on his face, despite the day they’d had, thinking about her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is there such a thing as fluffy angst? If so, I'd love to create a proper amalgamation of the words, but I couldn't think of one myself :)


	18. "Isn't this what you wanted?"

Robin was typing frantically away, trying to compile notes to update an increasingly impatient client and peruse a new mark’s social media in a second browser window simultaneously. She felt a bit like the fabled old woman who lived in a shoe, trying to juggle a million children at once, but with far too few hands. Except Robin’s “children” were adults who couldn’t manage their own personal affairs and had to resort to hiring private investigators to do so.

It’s not like she wasn’t grateful for the business. Due in part to having taken on twice as many clients as was wise or responsible, the agency’s bank account was thriving, which would be immensely helpful in placing a down payment on a new office space. Robin just preferred intellectually challenging cases. And sleep.

“Ellacott. We need to talk.”

Cormoran was gruff as he crutched into the office, tea thermos lidded and secured in the crocheted sling Pat had knitted him the day before, when it became clear he’d be crutch-bound for the next week or more. She’d even created a little pocket which could be fastened with a button to secure biscuits next to his mug, and Cormoran had been visibly delighted to note that it had capacity for three biscuits at a time.

“What’s wrong, Cormoran?” Robin was doing her damnedest to ensure she ran the agency as smoothly as possible during Cormoran’s period of relative confinement, but by the looks of his furrowed brows, she was not doing well enough.

“What on god’s green earth have you done to the rota? Everything was switched around when I looked this morning, and I couldn’t find a single hour in the next week you’re not scheduled to be doing two things at once.”

She regarded him innocently and with confusion, worrying her lip. “Isn’t this what you wanted? I know you mentioned we were throwing Michelle in a bit too far in the deep end at once, and with Barclay’s annual leave and Hutchins having more appointments lately… and…” She trailed off, not wanting to imply that his health concerns were a burden to her. They were not, despite the objective effect they had on the agency’s scheduling or bottom line.

“Robin, darling, at this rate you’ll be burnt out in half a minute. That’s never what I want, no matter what’s going on with anyone else.”

She simply gazed at him without comment. 

“It would really be a mercy if you’d give me a bit more to do. My brain’s still kicking, but it might not be if you give me that much time off. It’ll go vegetative from disuse.”

“Alright, fair’s fair, I suppose. You can have AquaGirl,” she conceded, emailing him links to the social media profiles of the mark who, in contrast to the propaganda on her profiles, was clearly running a multi-level marketing scheme with some ridiculously expensive sham water-ionizing machines.

Rather than setting off to work, he rose with some effort and leaned against their desk to stand, lifting each of her hands deftly from the keyboard.

“You do know you don’t have to prove yourself to me, love? You already have. A million times over.”

“It’s not a matter of _proving,_ I just want to run the place well enough that…”

“You already have, darling. A million times over.”

She smiled, then when she caught a glance of the time on her computer monitor, swatted his hands away playfully. “Back to work, Mr. Strike!”

“Yes, Boss,” he muttered glumly, but when she looked up, he was grinning mischievously at her, and he winked.


	19. "Don't lie to me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya! I'm posting three chapters at once (thanks, sprints, for helping me to finally --and definitely fleetingly-- get caught up!) This is the first of the three :)

“When are you due back?”

Robin looked over to Strike as she wrapped her emerald green scarf, which he’d gifted her the previous winter, around her neck. Slipping into her coat, she took a moment to think through the rest of her day before responding.

“Not likely to be any time before three, I’d say. After the Colliers, there’s the meeting with Runaway, and I’m due to pick up a book Melody checked out from the University of London library the week before she died. On mental illness, her roommate said she made lots of markings in it.”

“Early pint when you get back? Surely we can skiv off _one_ Friday?”

Robin laughed. “Yeah, sure. Tottenham?”

“Would we ever betray our local?” He gave her a look which conveyed the magnitude of her treachery, nearly approaching that of ranking Spurs over Arsenal. Rising from his chair, he joined her at the coat rack they’d recently acquired for the inner office, as the outer one had gotten too crowded over the course of their first winter with such an expanded payroll. 

In addition to Michelle, they’d hired two new subcontractors of varying quality, commitment, and respect. One was intentionally part-time, and the other, Strike was hoping to demote to no time at all.

But for now, there was time for tenderness before he unleashed his rage on their new hire. He released Robin’s gorgeous burnt-gold hair from the confines of her scarf and coat, and she sighed and leaned into him for a brief hug which restored her as immediately as her first hit of caffeine each morning.

“Love you,” she mumbled casually into his chest.

He kissed the crown of her head in response. “Love you too.”

And she was off. It had been an immense surprise to learn that to Robin, so far removed from Cormoran’s paradigm of normalcy in relationships, _I love yous_ punctuated every departure, every phone call, every note. Her love was so freely given, but when he’d balked at it, she’d gently reminded him that it was far from being thrown about without reason. He had earned it over the course of years, and she was now delivering his earnings with an effusiveness caused by years of repressing them.

He pressed his hand to his lips, not unlike the way he’d done after their very first kiss. Once she’d been gone long enough for him to be certain she’d not return for a forgotten item, he called their newest hire, Tony Perkins, into the inner office. Tony had been somewhat confused as to why Cormoran had scheduled him for a last-minute day of desk-based research but hadn’t asked questions, because he respected Cormoran’s authority.

And Cormoran’s only, which was the impetus for their current meeting.

“Perkins. How have things been going for you, on the job? I know it’s a bit of a change from your old office environment.”

“Good, good, mate. I definitely had the experience from the police, so I’ve been getting really good evidence, and I think I’ve been able to make some intellectual contributions to the cases as well, not just doing the grunt work, you know?”

“Is that how you see it?” Cormoran allowed his voice to now adopt the stony tone he’d suppressed at the beginning of the conversation. He crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned back on the desk behind him, nearly sitting on it.

“Is it how I--?” Tony looked confused, and unused to having his authority or interpretation questioned.

“Because how it looks to me, is you don’t know how to respect authority.”

“That’s not true!” Tony protested. “The minute you gave me an instruction, or shot down my idea, I swear I’d—”

“But would you do the same for Robin?” Cormoran interrupted. “Would you drop your hunch to follow her leads and assignments? Would you do _whatever_ she asked of you, without question, no matter how off the wall your smooth brain thinks it may be?”

“Well, she—”

“Don’t lie to me! That’s not a yes. I think we’re done here, Perkins. The agency won’t be renewing your contract beyond the end of the week.”

“I haven’t even done anything wrong!” Tony’s face was reddening rapidly, and he gesticulated wildly as he spoke in an effort to defend himself.

“Yet. You haven’t done anything wrong _yet,_ but Robin is the most talented investigator at this agency, and I don’t think that anyone who doesn’t automatically see that is a particularly good fit for the company.”

Tony looked simultaneously pissed and crestfallen, if such a combination could exist. Cormoran hoped his bewilderment at the sacking would teach him a lesson about how to treat the women in his life.

“I’ll see you out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Methinks Cormoran may get a _little_ overzealous about vetting their new hires, and I love him for it. _Michelle meets the first requirement_ was... chef's kiss.


	20. "Is this really necessary?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hellloooo there! Thanks so much for reading! I'm adding chapters 19-21 at the same time because #late at #everything all the timeeee, so if you missed that number 19, check it out! Or don't, you do you ;)

Cormoran’s lip wrinkled with disgust as he reached out to examine the grey patterned pageboy hat Robin had placed on their shared desk, along with a matching pocket square and waistcoat.

Perched on the desk beside the offensive items, Robin lifted her hand from her lap to tug his comically protruding lower lip.

When she commented that the nicer of his walking sticks may make a convenient accessory, he abandoned all pretense of decorum and pulled her from the desk and onto his lap. “Is this really necessary?”

She laughed. He’d never tried to put on a disguise for work purposes before, but she’d been far more excited than was strictly necessary to put one together for him when she’d discovered their mark would be at some ridiculous fan event for a TV programme about American Robber Barons. 

“Is this really necessary?” he asked.

She giggled. Actually giggled, the _nerve._ “Yes, Strike. I’m sure you’ll love it once you get into character.”

He briefly considered placing a hand to her forehead to check for fever; surely his partner knew him better than that. But he had an idea which was far more likely to get him out of the ridiculous getup.

He nuzzled his face into _that spot_ between her clavicle and neck and kissed the flesh there slowly, openly, languidly. “What about now?” he spoke deliberately so as to provide the greatest stubble-on-damp-skin effect. “Is it really necessary, when you know what you could get if you say no?”

In leaning back on the desk, she knocked the cap and waistcoat to the floor. He grinned, knowing he had his answer.


	21. "Look away."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!! I posted three days' updates at once, so you can go check out days 19 and 20 if you missed them! $5 says I'm behind again tomorrow...

Robin felt over her woolen loops with one hand as she reminisced, eyes closed. Her eyes were hardly any help these days, difficult as it was to convince them to focus on the small stitches she knit. Best to learn by feel, as Cormoran had told her decades before about countersurveillance tactics.

There were many times in a detective’s career when it was best not to learn by sight, she’d learned. At first, such a concept had felt impossible. It was the task of an investigator to look into the things which others brushed off as coincidence, or were inclined to abdicate to officials who could turn the macabre, the violent, the grey of daily life into crisply delineated black-and-white.

She remembered the first time Cormoran had told her to look away, from the leg which had been sent to her but with a message for his trembling psyche. He’d had to forcibly turn her head with his hand, shield her with his chest, bring her to his private upstairs space, in order to prevent her looking. It had taken him years to reassure her that it was not a sign of weakness to need to look away, but of empathy. That it was strength to be affected by what you saw in people, and in the world they built and destroyed.

The second time he’d said the words to her was the first time they’d slept together. There was so little off-limits between them by then, but still present were the pains and insecurities with which past lovers had burdened them both, and Cormoran was not yet comfortable being un-whole, had not yet absorbed that her love for him completed what hate had removed, filled in the gaps, made him more than just unbroken in her eyes. 

They’d perched beside one another on the edge of her bed, and he’d reached down to his prosthetic and nearly forgot to ask, which had sent both of their hearts aloft at the recognition of the familiarity between them. But then he had asked, and she’d complied, _of course,_ had tucked her face into his shoulder as she’d hugged him from behind, showing her acceptance and support in even the parts of his life which he did not yet allow her to see.

She’d mouthed the words, though not said them aloud, countless times in the office when she put on different accents and voices on the phone to speak to different informants. It had gotten only more difficult when he’d admitted how turned on he was by the talent. She was grateful for their spinning desk chairs, so that _she_ could look away when he did not comply.

Her most vivid memory was of saying the words as he’d stood at her bedside beside the midwife, jaw dropped in horror at the sight of Theo emerging bloodily into the world after she’d carried him in loving protection for months. _You’ll never want to look at it again if you see it stretched like that,_ she’d warned him. He’d cheekily retorted that only minutes before, she’d sworn he wasn’t allowed anywhere near it again, anyway.

The words had also marked a number of endings in addition to that beautiful beginning. He’d begun to tear up when he regarded the sight of all of their professional accomplishments packed into two dozen boxes and filing cabinets and carefully wrapped furniture, and she’d tucked herself into her spot by his side and said the words. 

_But everything we built here, everything that happened in this office —_ He had protested but did look away, eventually, inevitably, as always by burying his face in her hair which grounded and comforted him.

_Everything we built here is within us,_ she’d told him. _And everything that happened here is still between us, too, is still happening._

There was no one else who could have understood what he meant and what he needed so perfectly, and who could meet him in his feelings and stay. She was the one for him. He had told her these things in wonderment that day, for neither the first time nor the last.

He had walked into their dining room in the wee hours of the morning of his last day of work, having woken up to find her side of the bed empty and cold. She’d not even looked up when he entered the room behind her but had sensed his presence and spoken. 

He’d seen just a glimpse of the massive collage of memories and accomplishments and ephemera she’d assembled before she told him to look away, and he’d managed more easily than expected to don an expression of surprise at his retirement party the next day. Though Robin may not have perfectly concealed the fact of its planning, there were countless details he couldn’t have foreseen, including visits by all of their respectable former employees, various friends and family, and even a number of their police contacts and clients from some of their more serious, justice-oriented cases. 

The last time would never wear away in her memory. It was he who’d said the words. The line between his fading irises and yellowing sclera had never looked starker, and his chest had that birdlike sharpness of angle which the erosion of subcutaneous fat brings. He’d held eye contact with her for minutes, the only sound between them his laboured breaths and her inner pain. It had felt like neither blinked, but one of them must have, and he reached up to cup her jaw so tenderly, half due to his care for her and half his declining strength. His hand had shaken like a leaf, so she’d leaned down toward his face for the kiss that always followed his affectionate touch. 

As soon as his lips pulled back from her skin, he’d whispered _look away, Robin,_ with his gaze resting somewhere over her right shoulder to avoid seeing the pain he knew he was imparting on her.

He had winced as she sobbed, and she remembered the weight and pull of it in her chest now, how it had felt like drowning and imploding and being ill all at once, as if her body was rejecting every meal it had ever swallowed, every bitter pill. 

She shook even now at the memory of his hand slackening in hers. Despite their nearly sixty years of life together in some capacity, she had seemed to forget his lifelong lesson in that life’s-length moment, and she did not look away but at him, and she saw his fading gaze in her mind’s eye now. She steadied her fingers, and she knit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah.. Sorry.  
> *hides*


	22. "Does this help?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> doing that whole three-days-in-one thing again, here is the first of the three!

Robin squeaked unintentionally as she finally, finally put together the proper combination of names their mark had apparently adopted as an alias. He seemed to be living a disconnected existence in a remote stretch of the Scottish Highlands, but he had been quoted in a local newspaper article about the referendum. The black-and-white image on the digitized paper was grainy, but Robin could just make out the face of the man they’d searched for in vain over the course of the past three months.

Cormoran was down on the street having a smoke; the stress of going so long without a single fresh lead was beginning to grate on him. Robin could hardly sit still awaiting his return, imagining the pride and awe he’d express at her discovery. 

She printed the page for good measure and dramatic effect.

When he reentered the room, he could tell she had something to say. She was nearly bouncing in her seat, but she waited until he’d sat at their desk and raised his eyebrow expectantly before sliding the printout across.

“Does this help?”

He smiled at the article but frowned when he looked up at her. “You’re not _helping._ ”  
Robin was taken aback. She’d expected he’d be kissing the ground she walked on, and yet…  
“You’re not helping; you’re _doing._ We’re a team. Partners. It’s not _you_ contributing to _my_ work, it’s us working together.”

Pedantic but touching. Robin stifled a laugh, and it was then that Cormoran realized the incongruity of his tirade for the moment.

“But yes,” he concluded. “Very helpful. You’ve done your part.”

Robin rolled her eyes, and she smiled.


	23. "Are you warm enough?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hehe never mind, just two today and (maybe, I can hardly make firm promises) two tomorrow!

Though Cormoran was far from looking forward to his and Robin’s inevitable, eventual move from the offices at Denmark Street, there were a couple of things about the four-hundred-year-old building he would not miss. For example, this winter the heating had been spottier than ever. He shivered as he rose from his bed and spent a few minutes longer than necessary in his toasty shower, not looking forward to the blast of icy air and reality which was certain to shock his system.

Once he’d dressed and warmed himself from the inside out with an extra sugary tea, he texted each of his employees to suggest they not come into the office, including an additional request for Pat to reschedule the clients who were intended to visit the office. There was no way it would be habitable.

All responded promptly with affirmations, including a joke from Barclay about having a lie-in on the clock. Cormoran’s subconscious attempted to solve his inability to have a cosy warm lie-in by suggesting he work from _Robin’s_ home, which was a splendid idea, except that she was the only member of the Agency who hadn’t responded to his message.

It wasn’t until he heard her footsteps on the stairs that he remembered they’d scheduled an early meeting to go over the client they were intended to close out later in the morning. She’d probably not gotten his message from the Underground.

“I didn’t know our exorbitant rents were intended to cover the cost of converting the building to a bloody icebox,” she said by way of greeting. 

“Tell me about it. Heat’s gone in my flat, as well.”

“You can stay over at mine till it’s back. Silver linings and all that.”

He smiled. His problem solver, his very own personal silver lining to all that life threw at him, she was.

“D’you want to work from there as well? Don’t know we’ll be able to concentrate much with our brains turning to snowbanks.”

She pulled a face. “I’d been planning to get a few things done on the desktop.” After a moment’s evaluation, she offered, “I could get it wrapped in just a couple hours, though, we could have a lunch out, and then go to mine?”

He nodded. “D’you want a blanket, then?” She’d dressed for the weather but hadn’t exactly planned to spend entire hours in it, so she hadn’t worn her warmest coat.

“Don’t know it would be much use unless you’ve got one of those blankets with sleeves they sell on the telly. My arms would freeze from sticking out!”

He laughed and rose from their desk. “I’m sure I’ll find something.”

He pulled out his softest and smallest jumper, one Ted had gifted him just after he’d joined the Army. Though he’d been a smaller man when he’d enlisted, he’d never been far shy of massive, and he had a feeling the garment would still swamp his girlfriend. He then found a pair of flannel pajama pants and his favourite grey sweatpants, figuring he’d let her choose between them. He’d hoped to bring her his wooly home-knitted socks as well, but only one was clean. 

Accepting what he’d found, he bundled the laundry under one arm and returned down to the office, where Robin was holding her hands over the steam rising out of the kettle in hopes of receiving some of its warmth. She smiled gratefully when she saw him and accepted the jumper instantaneously. The sleeves were long enough that only the tips of her middle fingers were visible when her arms hung by her side. He smiled softly at her as he rolled the cuffs once, twice, and a third time, lifting her wrist to his mouth for a brief kiss before repeating his actions on her other arm.

“I’ve brought sweatpants and pajamas, wasn’t sure which you’d prefer.”

She was wearing tights under a dress, and he wasn’t exactly sure what would be comfortable to slip over her work clothes.

“Can I have both?” 

He laughed, but she was serious and got to work, first pulling the flannel pants over her tights and then the baggier sweats over his pajamas, eventually allowing her sweater dress to fall back down over the top.

“Do I look a bit like Humpty Dumpty?”

Her shape was decidedly lumpy due to the many insulating layers and their messy overlaps, and some may have called the getup frumpy. But his heart was suddenly ten degrees toastier than the rest of him.

“You look lovely. Fucking gorgeous, really.”

She laughed, and the twinkle in her eyes proved his point.

His clothes provided sufficient warmth until their teas were finished. When he looked up from a case file a half hour later, he noticed her form shivering faintly.

“Are you warm enough?”

He seemed to have surprised her out of a state of deep focus. “Warm as I can be, I reckon. But it’s incentive to finish up sooner, so we can do a bit less work when we get home.”

He smiled. “I like the sound of that.” But then she shook once more.

“I know I’m working against my own interests, ruining your incentive and slowing your work. But come here, Ellacott.”

“Can you come here instead?” She gestured toward her monitor, which was in fact the reason they were confined to the freezing office. Wouldn’t do much good to take her away from it, so he rolled his office chair toward her side of the desk and opened his coat so that she, too, could be enveloped on it when she sat on his lap.

His hands were occupied in wrapping the coat around her, so he contented himself with only reaching out once in a while to slide a piece of evidence on the sliver of desk beside her keyboard. They were like a pair of nesting dolls, he reading over her head and reaching under her perfectly poised typist’s hands. Every once in a while, she would lean back into his chest, head tilted in exasperation at her inability to recall a word or get a result she needed from a search, and he found himself hardly able, anymore, to be angry about the coldness of the building.


	24. "What time is it?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not terribly creative with this one ;) My best guess is that I'll not finish until at least a week into November, feel free to make bets in the comments lmao

Robin groaned as she emerged into consciousness, and in a move quite unlike her usual habits, she did not mark her awakening with a stretch but rather by curling up into a tighter ball. Even though she didn’t even have to go outside to get to work, there was hardly anything she wanted less than to leave the warm presence of her furry, cuddly partner.

He had other ideas. “Wake up, sleepyhead,” he whispered, nuzzling her shoulder with his stubbly chin.

She groaned once more. “What time izzit?”

“Quarter past eight.”

She swore. “Too bloody cold out. Work ought t’ be banned when it’s below freezing. Not right to force people out o’ their warm beds.”

He was considerably more alert, and found himself amused at her uncharacteristic grumpiness.

“Robin Venetia Ellacott, the capital’s most talented detective, doesn’t want to go to work?” he teased.

Her reply could not have been called a word by even the most generous of definitions.

“I ought to call your boss,” he warned playfully.

“Been shagging ‘im. Don’t think he’ll mind.”

Robin and Strike shook in tandem from the power of his laugh, which rose from deep within his belly. He pulled her yet closer with the arm which had been draped lazily over her waist, so that her back was squeezed tightly to his chest, and he revised his threat. 

“I’ll call the papers, then. They love you.” He kissed her hairline at her temple. “Just like I do.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d said the words, but Robin’s heart fluttered away just the same. Some things never changed, and as her brain finally emerged into the realm of being properly awake, Robin hoped this was one of them.


	25. "How long was I asleep?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is technically set in the future of the Cadet universe, so I suppose it has very basic spoilers (though only if, like, you didn't think truth and true love would prevail?), and I've tried to work the details in such that they make sense, rather than being too confusing? (But also, it's really set during a sequel I'll probably never get around to actually writing, so it really spoils the imaginary sequel more than it spoils Cadet... am I just making a mess for all of us?! Probably haha but hopefully it makes sense as a standalone!)

Cormoran’s yell jolted Robin into reality with a violence she’d not experienced in years. It had felt, for months, like she was a passive observer of her greyscaled life, but the intense fear in her heart as Cormoran yanked the wheel toward the verge of the road made her feel more alive than she could ever remember feeling.

Her heart raced, and though she searched deep within her, she was unable to find the steady calm approach to situations she’d acquired over the course of her years in the Met. She took over control of the vehicle, carefully not looking at Cormoran, whom she knew was likely on the verge of panic-induced vomiting. He had grown accustomed to being driven by her even before she’d left him and their agency years before, and he had even once teased since they’d reunited that relying on her as a chauffeur was one of the things he’d missed most. But outside of their journeys together, cars were a trigger of long-held, rightfully held trauma for him. She wondered whether he’d be okay to finish the ride with her, whether she was okay to drive.

When she had the car parked safely out of the way of the passing traffic of the motorway, though she’d expected he would have escaped it as soon as was even marginally safe, he stayed put. She still did not turn to look at him, gazing instead at the bare branches of the trees on the roadside through the windscreen, and at the pale reflection of her own trembling form which overlaid them. Her tears made cold tracks down her cheeks.

“How long was I asleep?”

Her words were exhaled more than whispered; she feared speaking them into existence but had to know how serious her lapse had been.

“Only a moment, but Robin—"

She could not do this. She could not listen to his admonishing on top of her own self-flagellation, which was intense on even the nightmares which constituted her “best days,” even when she hadn’t so explicitly and objectively endangered the lives of her partner and their son. Her mind had told her such things were inevitable, but she had not as of yet lived up to them.

Robin wrenched the door open without looking in her side mirror to check the passing cars. Strike’s hand shot out to restrain her, but she slipped out of the vehicle, leaving the door open and running round the back of it to kneel on the edge of the road, retching, her sobs audible now. Cormoran pulled her door shut before opening his own and the one behind, exiting the car and leaving their wailing son in his car seat, but close enough by to be minded. 

“Robin—” Cormoran, too, was crying, and as the thought registered in Robin’s mind, yet another wave of guilt washed over her. How could she have brought such pain on this blameless, supportive man? He would have been so much better off if he had never found her and little Leda and his brother years before.

“I know, Cormoran. I could’ve killed us! I almost killed us all, we almost died, I _know!_ You don’t have to tell me what I’ve done wrong. Where I went wrong. I’m going to kill us all. I’m going to – you should leave me, take the children and – you shouldn’t let me—”

Robin was sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees, rocking arrhythmically. Her hiccupping sobs mingled with Owen’s wailing, and worrying that the sound may be prolonging Robin’s feeling of maternal failure, he turned from her to gently lift their son from his car seat. The boy quieted instantly as he settled against his father’s bulky frame, as he always did, and Cormoran tucked the right lapel of his greatcoat around the boy’s small chubby body. He could just now hold his head up reliably and did so, his downy strawberry blond hair catching the winter light as he looked for his mother.

Cormoran wondered whether Owen recognized the sound of his mother’s crying, before realizing the boy was probably nearly as familiar with the sound as with his own or Leda’s or anyone’s speaking voice.

Cormoran returned to Robin’s gently rocking frame and placed one arm around her back, mirroring the way he coddled Owen to his chest with his other arm. The shushing sounds he made were only for her; their son indeed cooed happily in time with Cormoran’s soothing.

“Robin, this isn’t working,” he started, but she cut him off in a panic as she’d always done at any misguided, but rightfully frightened, perception of an implication that she wasn’t fit to work.

“I don’t want to stop working, I won’t. You said you’d never make me choose—”

“I’m not suggesting you stop. Being home was hardly good for you; you weren’t in a good place. But promise me you’ll tell Lydia about this at your next session?”

“She’ll tell me it’s a sign, I’m not coping, I need to—”

Cormoran could have lectured her on the inutility of lying to a therapist, and how it prohibited them from supporting you fully, but he knew Robin knew this on some level. That was not what she needed to hear.

“I was thinking maybe I could take some time off. We can swap. You get the office stress; I’ll carry the burden at home.”

“They’re not—”

“I know you would never call them that. But neither of us can deny that there was a lot on you, Robin. Let me help.”

“I don’t want to need this.” She sobbed, and the force of it tugged her lower lip deep within her mouth as her shoulders trembled. “I don’t want to need Lydia, I don’t want to need the medication, I don’t want to need to disrupt your working life; it’s the most important thing to you, it’s why I left in the first place years ago. I want to be able to handle it, Cormoran. I want to be _capable_.”

“You are capable, love, always have been. But you’re taking on more than your fair share, my Robin. It’s time to let me take mine. Partners, we are, and that’s what partners do.”

He leaned into her, nudging her shoulder with his torso in a gesture which sometimes conveyed friendly banter, sometimes lifelong support.

“I’m sorry I don’t lean on you enough. I should be used to it by now, the fact that I can.” She inhaled a deep, shuddering breath. “Partners,” she resolved.


	26. "Do you want me to stop?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay this one may be my new favorite??? The idea was suggested by someone on Discord weeks ago, though I regretfully don't remember whom. Thank you, whoever you are!! And thanks to Jules for helping me to pick a song that worked so well with this time in their lives :)

Strike had a song stuck in his head nearly all day on Tuesday, and he couldn’t figure out why. It was tinny, peppy, not his style but vaguely familiar, underlying memories of the months since just before they’d closed the Chiswell case as if it had been playing constantly in cafes and from Underground buskers, but without Cormoran ever having listened to it all the way through.

Snippets of it came to him with unasked regularity. _Feeling my way through the darkness_ declared his brain as he searched fruitlessly through public records for evidence his client had a second wife. 

_I can’t tell where the journey will end_ his brain commented as he popped onto the Tube to meet Ilsa for a lunchtime catchup. Robin was living with the Herberts now, and even though he knew his childhood friend enjoyed the company of his partner, he still felt the need to thank her for putting herself and Nick out indefinitely. He was overcome with even more gratitude when Ilsa told him she’d set Robin up with the brother of an old friend from university, who needed a renter after – get this—he, too, had separated from a man named Matthew.

Cormoran wondered how long it would take before Robin’s separation from her Matthew was cleanly cut, finalized, found himself wishing he could just close his eyes and allow the time to pass him by, waking up only when it was safe to, maybe, see what they could be – together? The words took on an unforeseen melody as he thought them, and he wondered whether it was the pesky pop song in his head once more, or whether the constant work of infidelity cases had begun to pickle his brain in a jar of monotony. He didn’t know where to start, if he wanted to try to find the song, and this thought, too, had refrained lyrically in his subconscious. 

When he climbed the stairs back to the office on Denmark Street, Cormoran began to worry he’d fully lost it. Or could he really hear the song? It was pitchy, and didn’t quite seem to follow the intervals or consistent rhythm music theory would dictate. He made even more liberal use of the bannister than usual to climb the stairs more quickly, and paused outside of the office.

He could just see what he knew to be Robin’s figure through the frosted glass of the door, and with a smile to himself, noted the way the familiar Northern vowels of her speaking voice carried through to her novice singing.

She had just moved out of sight to the sink when he opened the door, and the noise of the tap melded with the lyrics, seemingly blocking to her ears the noise of Cormoran’s entry.

 _All this time I was finding myself,_ she sang. _And I, didn’t know I was lost._

Cormoran perched on the corner of her desk closest to their kitchenette, still in his coat, not wanting his presence to cause her to stop. She’d never sang around him that he could remember, though she’d begun humming almost nonstop after they’d solved the Chiswell case, after she’d moved in with the Herberts, after she’d left the beautiful sailor’s house in Deptford that Cormoran was beginning to suspect had felt more like a schooner in the middle of the ocean, isolating and unleavable, than the comfortable familial property it had seemed from the outside.

 _I tried carrying the weight of the world, but I only have two hands…_

Cormoran’s smile faltered at the sadness of the lyrics, worried they rang true for his partner and worried even more that he’d contributed to that. Together, of course, they’d have four hands to hold such gravitative weight, they could carry it—

But Robin turned from the sink as she finished the lyric and gasped at the sight of Cormoran at her desk. She brought her hands to her mouth, but her blush indicated the gesture was out of embarrassment rather than fright.

He smiled at her, confident now that it was _she_ causing his subconscious to sing; as peskily memorable as the lyrics were, they were not the reason for his fixation.

“You never used to sing,” he said huskily. Her blush deepened, and she looked down at her hands, toying with her fingers. 

“Didn’t feel much like singing before,” she said steadily, but the pinkness in her cheeks refused to recede, despite the level tone of her voice.

“Do you want me to stop?” she asked, her entire posture changing as she nearly shrunk in on herself at the possibility that her joy was not welcomed, as if Cormoran would want anything other than absolutely all of her, in her most genuine form.

“No, carry on. Don’t stop on my account.” He smiled widely, almost flirtily, but he didn’t want to push things, given how recent her break from her husband had been. 

But when she grinned coyly back at him, reached out her hand to pull at his own, tugging him into a standing position, and demanded he join her, Cormoran thought, with equal hope and shock, that maybe he could push it. Just a little.

“I’m not much of a singer,” he protested. “And I don’t know the song.”

She rolled her eyes. “Maybe one day,” he conceded. He found it difficult to imagine a single thing he would not do for her, his Robin, this singing, finally uncaged bird.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely sure when I'll be posting the next five, as I have a quite busy week ahead, so we can prolong the Striketober celebrations ;) woohoooo! Thanks as always for being so chill about my sporadic updates with a challenge that is intended to fully hinge on regular updates... lol


	27. "I Can't Reach."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! It's... not October anymore :/ I thought I'd try to see if I can finish this before the year ends at least, so I've about four hours to go... but I've also got cooking to do and dinner to eat, so we'll see! My hopes are low, and as we all know, deadlines are not my strong suit haha  
> (Also I *think* if I finish this, I'll hit 100k words for the year, which is very exciting considering I only joined AO3 in July! Even if I don't hit it, I'm quite proud of myself for getting as close as I have.)

“Alright, I’m out to interview the Warden. Wish me luck!” Robin closed her laptop as she spoke, packing away her things with characteristic efficiency. 

“G’luck,” Strike mumbled around a biscuit, doing his best to smile at his partner without opening his mouth.

The Agency was investigating a case of potential mistreatment at HMP Belmarsh on behalf of an inmate’s sister, who believed her brother had been suffering abuse at the hands of his cell block’s guards. After weeks of searching and making fruitless contacts, Robin had finally found an ex-employee of the prison who was willing to speak with her. She knew she had only one shot to get the information they needed, so she’d spent all morning preparing for the interview.

As Robin passed through into the small hallway between the inner office and the rest of the space, Barclay looked up from his spot at the subcontractors’ desk.

“Don’t forget tae tap the doorframe, Robs!” he called.

“I can’t reach,” she replied.

“You’ve no’ been doin’ it this whole time?” Sam’s jaw dropped fractionally in a mixture of disbelief and betrayal.

“Been relying on cold, hard skill, mate. I’m just that good.”

Strike, who had preceded Robin out of their office and was presently making tea at t he kitchenette, laughed under his breath. Robin looked at him sharply.

“You have something to say, Strike?”

Strike adored this saucy tone of Robin’s, though he’d never say. He was instead getting better at bringing it out of her.

“No, no. You are good,” he assured her. As if she needed it! Strike was proud to say Robin had seemed increasingly more confident in her rightful place at the helm of the agency following her dismissal of Morris.

“Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t tap the door, though,” Cormoran continued. “Office tradition.”

“Did you miss the part where I said I can’t reach? Unless you’ve got some of whatever height potion you must’ve drunk as a kid.”

Barclay snorted. Strike rolled his eyes, but Robin could see his shoulders shaking slightly with silent laughter. He jerked his head toward their office.

“Go on then, I’ll give you a hand.”

Robin flushed as Strike’s hands closed in on her waist, lifting her toward the top of the doorway with gentle, even pressure on either side of her hipbones.

She touched the top of the doorframe with a showy flounce directed at Barclay’s cheeky smile, which she hoped would distract her subconscious from how fucking _good_ Strike’s hands felt, or the fact that his breath was falling unevenly on her breasts, now level with his face due to his hold on her.

“Got it?” he asked. His voice was gruff, and when Robin looked down, she noted his eyes were averted carefully past her, into their office.

“Yeah, cheers.” 

Strike set her carefully back to the ground, and Robin cleared her throat. She need not think about whether he could hold her heart so gently as he did her body, or indeed whether he would handle her so carefully in his bed, or whether she would even want him to be gentle, maybe — no, Robin would soon be late for her meeting, which she could not afford. She straightened her skirt, smiled, and waved goodbye to her colleagues, feeling she’d caught a bit more than good luck in the past five minutes.


	28. "Don't freak out."

Robin chewed thoughtfully on a bite of the quiche she’d bought hours earlier, when she’d first followed her mark into a quaint Islington café. They’d been hired by a woman who feared her fiancé was cheating, as well as by a seemingly unrelated man who thought his tenant may be running a high-end methamphetamine operation out of his rental property. When Strike and Robin had found themselves in the same café when they were meant to be on separate surveillance operations, it had become suddenly apparent Twitchy Tenant and Flakeboy were one in the same.

Unfortunately, Flakey Tenant, as Robin had mentally renamed him in the three hours they’d spent at a nearby table, seemed to have caught on to the detectives’ attention. They had tried, as always, to be subtle and inconspicuous as they noted the things Flakey Tenant disclosed to his lunch partner, but it seemed that their best efforts had not been good enough. (Who was the woman truly, was she his side woman? Illegal business partner? They should have learned by now, Robin couldn’t help but think.)

Because Robin hadn’t expected her day would include such sedentary surveillance, she hadn’t come prepared with faux schoolwork or a crafty hobby to disguise her attention, or to justify their prolonged presence in the café. She wracked her brain for a suitable conversation topic, something which could draw attention, could conceivably take hours to work up the courage to address… She would later blame Ilsa’s frantic nesting for the choice she made, almost too quickly to give it a rational thought or conceive of a second option.

“I think I’m pregnant.” Her breath couldn’t come quickly enough; though she didn’t mean the words, it was still scary to say them to a man she was confident would not be receptive, and whom she’d only been dating for just under a year.

“I’m sorry I asked you to meet me here and have been silent for hours; I was just so scared to say, not knowing how you’d take it. I’m not sure that I am, but I thought maybe we could get another test and take it together, so we’d know –”

His gaze was vacant, his lips parted. _Don’t freak out, don’t freak out, don’t freak out!_ Robin found herself chanting mentally, unsure whether she was praying or attempting telepathy. If she’d already jeopardized the marks, she didn’t need to reactionarily ruin her relationship, as well.

She winked at Cormoran, nodded her head carefully toward their marks’ table, but his guarded-yet-bewildered expression didn’t change. How else could she make the statement’s falsehood clear? She should not have gone there, especially considering his history. Bugger.

“Robin, I—we—"

Damn. Damn it all to hell, if he’d dropped her cover name he most certainly thought she was telling the truth. Fortunately, the idea of cover names inspired her. Maybe, if she concocted the most far-fetched cover and acted her heart out…

“I know it’s not great timing, considering both my mum and my sister are pregnant, too, but I think this could be a good step for us, Dave. As friends who have sex sometimes, you know?”

Finally, finally, he got it, and Robin had never seen her partner shift so rapidly under the surface from the border of teariness to that of carefully-subdued laughter.

He reached for her hand with a quite passable look of contrived fondness. “Oh sweet cheeks, I’m so glad we’re on the same page. Co-parents who have sex sometimes is the perfect next step for us.”

He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it sloppily, loudly. Robin carefully suppressed her desire to wipe the slobber off on her napkin. She winked at Cormoran once more, and this time, he winked right back.


	29. "You scared the shit out of me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one follows immediately after the scene in the last chapter!

The forty-five minutes between Robin’s horrific idea of a cover story and their marks’ departure was a shallow agony. Cormoran wasn’t angry, though he had every right to be; he was instead making endless jokes, off-the-wall name suggestions, and comically posh, laborious tasks they’d need to accomplish in order to prepare for the arrival of their fictional bundle of joy.

Robin was so sure she hadn’t absorbed a single bit of their marks’ conversation in so long that she’d nearly suggested twice or thrice that they simply throw in the towel and go home. At the very least, the day was successful for the discovery of their cases’ interconnectedness, which could potentially allow for the consolidation of future surveillance.

Not only was her attention gone, but Robin was overcome with the need to apologize for the momentary trauma she’d put Cormoran through. She’d practically seen his flashbacks before he’d hidden his expression, and he deserved better than a partner who was so flippant with his triggers.

Robin’s hands trembled as she unlocked the doors of the Land Rover, in which she’d been tailing her mark for most of the morning. As soon as they were both in the vehicle, she began her litany of apologies.

“Sorry about that, in there. I was trying to…”

He leaned his head back against the top of his seat, closing his eyes as she trailed off. “You scared the shit out of me.”

Robin flinched. “Sorry. I should have known better. That’s clearly off limits, given everything that—Well, it should just be universally off limits, anyway.”  
His voice was gentle. “No, no. It’s not, actually. That’s what scared me, realizing…”

Cormoran looked down, fidgeting with his fingers, then picked a bit at the twill of his pants. He took a deep breath and held it, looking up at her with renewed purpose and locked their gazes with an intimacy they’d only shared a handful of times, it being on a level altogether more serious and lasting than the day-to-day familiarity between them.

“Realizing it didn’t scare me, with you there. _That’s_ what scared the shit out of me.”

Her left hand found his knee without wandering, straying, or searching. She simply knew where she’d find him, and that confidence combined with her gentle squeeze gave him reassurance.

“So no,” he concluded. “Nothing is off limits with you, as far as I’m concerned.”

Robin looked cautiously over at her partner, unsure how the sand beneath them had shifted so rapidly. “That doesn’t mean that I’m exactly _wanting_ to—”

Cormoran laughed. “Oh, no. Me neither. But if I had to choose anyone to suffer that with, we’d make a damn good team.”

He scooped Robin’s hand from his knee to hold between his two large ones, and placed a kiss warmly — and much more quietly, less sloppily than he had done undercover – on the back of it. He squeezed her hand once more, as if to make sure the kiss soaked in, for safekeeping.

Cormoran got a bit carried away watching his partner, manning the car one-handed with ease and still smiling faintly from the most serious compliment he could deliver. Overcome with love for her, he kissed the pad of her thumb, over and over and over again, before slipping the digit into his warm mouth, laving his tongue around it in slow circles, reversing, and repeating.

“I thought you didn’t like distracted drivers.” Robin was on edge and her voice, nearly breaking, reflected it. Her spine was tense and ramrod straight.

“Oh, am I distracting you?” he asked cheekily, releasing her finger from his mouth with a loud _plop_

Old phobias be damned, his Robin had worked that out of him. She’d never let harm befall them if she could prevent it.

“Very much so.”

“Maybe I still feel in control, given that I’m the one doing the distracting.”

Robin pulled over into the next carpark, thankful for the shade provided by the dense tree line at its perimeter.

“Well, that makes one of us who’s feeling in control, Mr. Strike,” she whispered. “And it’s not me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It occurred to me during my typo check that you probably can't drive a manual transmission for that long without your left hand to switch gears, but we'll pretend she was just going at a particularly consistent speed? Is that how that works? #fanficbabeye


End file.
